


Jedi Night

by LeiasLeftBun



Series: SWR Kanan Lives AU [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: A tiny bit of mild sexual content. Just sprinkled in there., F/M, Fuck Jedi Night, I cherry-pick canon for my own happiness, Kanan lives because he deserves to live, Pregnancy, Torture, Violence, after three years im finally back on my bullshit (not that i ever truly left), kanera - Freeform, l love all of my spectres so fucking much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:20:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 41,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeiasLeftBun/pseuds/LeiasLeftBun
Summary: This is pretty much a Jedi Night fix-it that branches off into what I like to think would have happened after Rebels. With less death of good characters.
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Series: SWR Kanan Lives AU [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1877149
Comments: 90
Kudos: 188





	1. Selflessness (or What is Thought to Be)

**Author's Note:**

> I’m back on my bullshit after three years of leaving all of you on AO3 alone! I never actually stopped writing. I just stopped posting. As much as I want to delete my old stuff, it is there to remind me that I have improved. Changed. I did orphan them though. For a fresh start. Anyway, I figured if I posted that perhaps someone who was out of Kanera fics would get some sort of happiness from it. Or not. It’s free, so you can’t really lose.

The moment he’d come completely back to his senses, he wished for a split second he hadn’t been born with any in the first place.

The galaxy around him felt like overwhelming heat. It felt like the weight of one of his friends trembling in his arms. It smelled of fuel as it danced around them, flames catching in slow motion following behind. 

He winced as the noise of the world returned- so many conflicting noises he nearly went numb again. 

Not only had he heard the bending and twisting of the quickly degrading durasteel, but he’d heard the most heart-wrenching single-word plea from right in front of him.

That one word- that one name- sent his mind through a thousand memories all at once. It was happening again. He was losing his family. This was wrong, so wrong. Their ending was supposed to be a happy one, one where all of them got to be free. 

Not one where his master burned to death before his eyes, not one where he could see the flames reflect in the glossed-over eyes of his surrogate mother as she watched her- 

_What is Kanan to her?_

Her best friend. Lover. Partner in crime. Her de facto husband, as far as the crew was concerned- burn to death. Ezra was not going to sit and watch her crumble as Kanan perished in such a violent way, interrogation drugs rushing through her injured body. No proper, sober goodbye.

The slurring. Trembling. The fear etched on her face as she’d tried to run after him. Ezra knew that choice was an act of desperation- it was unlikely she’d actually acknowledged the risk she was taking. For a terrible moment, Ezra feared she _had_ known exactly what she was doing. 

That she had fully intended on dying beside him. That she _wanted_ to die, for them to literally face whatever they went through together. Ezra was certain of only one thing. Pryce had finally managed to exploit Hera’s weakness.

The Jedi. The man who meant the galaxy to her was dying right in front of her very eyes at the orders of the woman. Out of all the heartless things he had witnessed during his short life, this had to be the most cruel.

 _That settles it._

Ezra wasn’t sure if his next move was one of self _less_ ness or one of self _ish_ ness, but he had made his mind up. He took in a deep breath, a slight stinging running into his lungs, before closing his eyes.

"Hera. Sabine. I’m sorry for what I am about to do. Sabine, as soon as I say, fly us out as quickly as possible." While Hera didn’t react, Sabine did. "What are you doing? Hey-"

Ezra ignored her, finding his master in the flames. His forcefield was rapidly shrinking around him. He thought of all the times they’d thrown each other using this trick. He only had to do it backwards, right? It had to work. He tugged at him, frustrated at the lack of movement. 

The lack of movement Kanan was causing.

_Ezra, let go. You’ll all die if you do this._

Ezra pulled harder, using more and more energy. 

_You let go. Trust me._

Kanan opened his eyes, the cloudiness melting out of them. He looked at Hera, trembling now beside his padawan. He let go and let the flames wash over him, only to feel a pull stronger than any he’d ever felt. His world went black, intense pain etching its way through his nerves.

********

"Go! Go!" The ship itself had brushed up against the explosion, flames kissing the clothing of the three people in the back as the pods around them went off one after another. The ship was no longer stable and while he knew it was pointless to beg the woman to go faster, he couldn’t help but continue to do so.

"Sabine!" He yelled over the echoing of the explosions. His grip on the two of his mentors was slipping. With Kanan completely unconscious, Ezra knew he couldn’t be let go of even for a moment to readjust his hold.

Likewise, it seemed letting go of Hera for any amount of time would have her falling out the side of the ship that had, at some point in the last minute, began tailspinning. "Kriff, Ezra! Do you not think I am trying? I am not a combat pilot!" He tried to steady his breathing. He couldn’t let his surroundings take him over like this. "At least close the doors. Please." 

"Door controls are fried."

He’d made a mistake. Kill four in an attempt to save one. Kanan would be extremely disappointed in him. Hera would be, too, if she had been in her right mind. He closed his eyes and attempted to find his center.

_...when the time comes, we have to be ready to sacrifice for something bigger._

He took in a deep breath, in shock at what his mind had shown him. At that moment, Ezra knew why Kanan had done everything in his power to push them away. Why he’d so quickly chose to give his life for them. He looked beside him and sighed, closing his eyes tightly in an attempt to keep from crying. 

He didn’t have to wonder if she knew. The way she was fidgeting, her uninjured arm always leading her bloodied hand back to form a fist over her abdomen. Whose blood was that, even? 

The ship wasn’t getting any more evened out. He had to focus. "Didn’t she teach you anything about falling out of the sky?! We do it enough we should be professionals!" 

He had no intention of giving up. He was sure he could fix his mistake, even with his tiny bit of energy left. Sabine continued to tug at the controls. "There is no stabilizer. She’s catatonic. Kanan’s unconscious. You. You’re a Jedi. Do something." 

He couldn’t believe the amount of time the two of them were taking to figure this out. "Okay. Okay. I will do my best to stabilize the ship. I don’t have much energy left, but I will do it. I will get us leveled." 

"Now would be a great time!" Ezra refused to release his two friends and simply focused. Focused on the inner mechanics. Focused on the way the air felt under them. He felt the ship slightly stabilize before passing out. 

"Ezra? You did it! It’s stable! We’re not-" she turned around and saw only one person still sitting up. Hera let out a string of words in Ryl, her accent easily heard. Sabine understood only two of them, down and Ezra.

She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Thanks for the update. I don’t think I can handle this right now, honestly. Just stay still and don’t fall out of the ship. Door controls are fried." Hera responded with something Sabine assumed meant ‘okay’. 

She turned back to the front and stared blankly out into the glowing night sky. "Fuck. Kriff. It’s just me, a traumatized Twi’lek who has reverted back to her native language, and two unconscious Jedi." She tried to calm herself. 

Hera continued to talk. Sabine just nodded, hoping she wasn’t agreeing to anything too terrible. After a few minutes of constant chatter in a language she didn’t know, the ship got quiet. She turned around to make sure she was okay. 

She just looked right back at her, leading Sabine to turn back to the controls. "Huh. Got anything else to say?" She heard her crawl closer and sit on the ground beside her chair. "I-" although now speaking in Basic, her accent remained. "I’m pregnant." Sabine felt the blood drain from her face. 

She started to laugh uncomfortably. "Hah. Hah. Joke? Joke, right?" Hera leaned forward and fiddled with a wire that dangled down near her. "Surely you know I wouldn’t joke about such things, Sabine." 

She heard wires moving. "Well, at least now I know what kind of drugs they gave you." Hera scoffed, focusing mainly on her work. "I could have told you that. Truth serum." She rolled her eyes and plugged the wire in and twisted others. "The doors should work now." 

Sabine tightened her grip. "Good job, Hera. Thank you. I don’t care about the doors right now, though. I’m almost scared to ask. Anything else?" Sabine began to land the ship as gently as she could, given it’s condition. "Kanan’s pretty cute."


	2. Imperial Law

Sabine sighed as the ship landed. "What is bothering you?" She took a hand and pushed it back through her hair. What _wasn’t_ bothering her?

"Hera. Hera. Hera. Just- this is a lot." She looked up from her spot on the floor. "Hah. What an excessive amount of times to say my name. I am right beside you, Sabine. You knew you already had my attention." 

"I think we should stop talking now." Sabine stood up and jumped around her before turning to help her up. "I was simply trying to make small talk. You seem upset." Hera had placed a hand on Sabine’s shoulder, doing her best to comfort her.

"That was not small talk, Hera. Small talk would be asking me about my hair color or something. Informing me-" The crunch of the dead grass pulled her away for a moment, the voice that came after getting her full attention. "What happened?"

Hera turned away from Sabine, starting to explain to the lasat. "Well, Kanan saved me and he got my kalikori and-" She was stopped by a gentle pat on the shoulder that caused her to forget what she was saying, giving Sabine room to speak. "I’ll explain everything later. Kanan’s burnt. Badly. We need him to get into the medbay and start-" 

"Woah. How’d my ship get back here? This is not the planet I left it on. Or is it? No. No, it’s not." She’d wandered to the edge of the ship, leaning out slightly. "We had Mart go to Yavin and bring it back." She started out of the ship and immediately fell, misjudging the depth around her.

Zeb quickly helped her up, dirt now dusted over the prison jumpsuit and mixed with the blood on her hands. "Karabast. Is she drunk?" Sabine held her by tossing one of Hera’s arms around her neck. "Garazeb Orrelios, you know me better than that. I-"

"Just get Kanan inside. I’ll handle her." Sabine let out a sigh of relief when the droid rolled down the ramp of the ship towards them. He chittered at Zeb, a long list of swears and questions pertaining to the Jedi. "What do you want, Chopper? I’m a bit busy." He continued walking and the droid gave up. He went to towards the small, damaged ship. 

_**Kriffing hell, you blood-thirsty Mandalorian! What have you done to mom?!** _

"I did not do anything to her. Go wake up Ezra for me. He’s in the ship." He angrily beeped and waved one of his manipulators around. 

_**Banthashit! You’ll pay for this!** _

"Chop, be nice to Sabine. She’s not having a good night." Chopper backed up from them slightly, looking between the two of them. 

_**She sounds like miniature mom again. She sounds like "never left Ryloth" mom. You must have really pissed her off. Or gotten her drunk.** _

"It really isn’t my fault. Please, go wake him up." He continued to complain, but reluctantly listened. Sabine lead Hera up the ramp, still slightly unsteady but improving. "Well. Don’t have to do this often. Never to you, anyway." 

She steadied her on the ladder and climbed after her in such a way that made it possible to support her should she let go. "What’s that supposed to mean?" Sabine tried to backtrack, realizing her slurring was less noticeable. The accent was fading.

"It means that you don’t drink. I’m not- not that I think you couldn’t handle it or anything. It’s just-." She groaned, meeting her at the top before leading her down the hall. "I do drink, actually. Just not in front of Kanan. It took him so long-" she paused at the door of her cabin as it whooshed open. "Why... why am I telling you this?" 

Sabine let out a sigh of relief. One problem down. "You were drugged, but for the good of us both, it seems to finally be wearing off. Regardless of whether or not the drugs are truly out of your system, you need to see a med droid as soon as we get somewhere." 

Hera was helped to her bunk, climbing up. "No." Her accent had now completely faded. Sabine went to walk out of the cabin, stopping to look back at the woman. "No? What do you mean 'no'? Are you hiding it for any certain reason? It is Kanan’s, right?" Hera raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms. "He doesn’t know, does he?"

"It is and he doesn’t. What inappropriate questions for you to have asked. I-" She stopped talking as she saw her hand out of the corner of her eye, resting on her arm. "Whose blood is on my hands, Sabine?" It was barely above a whisper. "It’s not yours. You’re okay." 

She started to tear up. "That wasn’t my worry. It wasn’t all in my head, was it?" Sabine shook her head gently. Hera jumped from her bunk and went for the door, only to be blocked before she had the chance to hit the controls. "Damn, you’re fast. Please move out of my way." 

"Zeb is taking care of him." The woman reached around her and opened the door. "I’m serious. Lay back down. I don’t know what they did to you but it couldn’t have been good." Sabine winced when she realized she’d grabbed a hold of one of her arms to stop her. Deadly silence. 

She turned to look at her fully and was shocked to see there wasn’t a scowl on her face. Her eyes were closed tightly, a few tears rolling down her cheeks. "What’s the blood from, Sabine? If he was burnt, why wasn’t it cauterized?" 

"You grabbed one of the deep burns. You didn’t hurt him. I promise. There would be no feeling left in a burn that deep." Sabine gasped as she was hugged tightly, taking a moment to return it. She wasn’t tearing up anymore. She was sobbing. 

What does one say to someone in this situation? Sabine couldn’t imagine going through all she just had. 'Sorry you had to watch your best friend of a decade burn up after he saved you from being drugged and tortured with the added complication of you being pregnant with his child and him not knowing.'? 

"It’s not okay now, but everything will be, Hera. As soon as Zeb stabilizes him we can get him help. We can get you help." She felt her shake her head against her shoulder before hugging her more tightly. "Illegal." 

Sabine raised an eyebrow, happy Hera couldn’t see her do so. "Illegal? What are you talking about?" Perhaps the drugs were not as gone as she had assumed. "Hybrids are illegal, right?" 

"Not... not that I know of?" They were living in a ship with dozens of illegal modifications, harboring Jedi, wanted insurgents with their pictures plastered all over the Empire-controlled galaxy. She had never once seen the woman care about Imperial law. Not about following it, anyway. 

"And if it were truly the law, you wouldn’t give a shit in the slightest. Yeah, some people don’t like the interspecies thing. But most people really don’t like anyone on this ship, anyway. I’m not that stupid. You aren’t going to be honest now that the drug has worn off and I told Zeb I would go help with Kanan."

It came out more harsh than intended, but it was the truth. "Sabine, I-" Sabine hugged her more tightly for a moment. "Sorry. Sorry. That was really rude of me. You’re going through a lot and it’s not fair of me to expect you to want to talk about this right now." 

Hera didn’t add anything else. "We can talk later. Please rest. I promise we will do everything we can for him." She forced herself to hit the controls, the look on the woman’s face giving her the feeling of a dull vibroblade twisting into her soul. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know the Ghost was not on Lothal at this point as she flew to Lothal in an x-wing. To be fair, almost nothing at this point matches canon anyway! I sure as hell wasn’t going to figure out some logical way for them to save Kanan without a good ship.


	3. Rumination

Sabine winced with each slow cut of the dull scissors through the burnt fabric. What skin wasn’t gone seemed to have melded itself to the worn-in once-green fibers. "Sabine, I can-" she shook her head as a few tears rolled down her cheeks untouched. "I’m fine." The shock had worn off. She was left with nothing but the horrifying reality of their current situation.

The night ran over and over in her mind, the harder she tried pushing it away, the more of her focus it seemed to steal. The smell of burning flesh. The sight of bits of light reflecting in the blood slowly running from Kanan’s exposed tissue after Ezra had tugged him away from the edge of the ship.

The sound of the accented voice of her utterly drunken surrogate mother repeating those two unexpected words. Again. Again. Her throat tightened, more tears falling. Things were changing faster than she’d ever expected and she wasn’t ready to be thrown out to the Loth-wolves again.

She felt a hand rest lightly on her shoulder and was brought back to the present. She had unknowingly begun sobbing at some point. "You have been through a lot in the last couple hours. It’s alright to need to step away." She turned and hugged Zeb tightly, letting herself cry. He patted her back. 

She could hardly get in a breath. The urge to spill everything overcame her. It needed out. She bit her lip. "I- I am sorry, Zeb. I didn’t mean to distract us." She loosened her hug and leaned away, wiping her tears away as she returned to cutting the clothing. 

He knew trying to argue against her was as pointless as arguing against Hera. He sighed and continued his futile attempt to completely cover the now-exposed areas with enough bacta to be even slightly effective.

"There’s a medical center about fifty klicks east, and even though it isn’t highly sophisticated, it’s our best shot at saving him." Her voice had steadied slightly. Maybe she would keep talking. Keep herself distracted just enough to keep a sense of being on solid ground. "Is Ezra okay?" She tossed more fabric into the pile on the floor. 

"Kid’s fine. He is sleeping. Told me he was simply drained. How’s Hera?" A loaded question. Sabine brushed back through her hair after she put down the scissors. "She’s... stressed. A bit injured, but overall-" She stopped as she heard the distinct sound of the ramp closing. The engines hummed to life.

"Oh, she’s in no condition to be doing that. Kriff. That woman has got me this close to losing it. Keep helping Kanan." She jogged around the halls, climbing her way up to the cockpit. Zeb turned back and continued his attempt to cover the wounds in bacta. "Karabast."

********

Hera was punching in coordinates and running the entire ship, without so much as her droid for backup. "I cannot believe you. Get out of the pilot’s seat. I’m flying." She turned to look at her, an eyebrow raised. "What did you just say to me? This isn’t the pilot’s seat. It’s _my_ seat, Sabine." 

Sabine shrank down and sat in Kanan’s seat, strapping in. She spun the chair to watch the captain. Hera’s motions were purposeful and fluid as she routed power to different parts of the ship and continued to type in information. It hadn’t been more than ten minutes since she’d seen her last. 

No logical way for her to have rested and sobered up so completely in that amount of time, but Hera’s reaction to her previous statement had her rethinking just how badly she wanted to confront her. Was it worth it?

She made her choice, speaking nearly under her breath. "What have you done?" Her eyes wandered slowly down to Hera’s neck, a large portion of it now visibly bruising. Further down, her prison jumpsuit was smeared with blood and burnt slightly on its arms. The _Ghost_ now smelled of smoke and the tiniest amount of fuel, and Sabine was certain that after Kanan, Hera was the one that had soaked up the most. 

She’d touched and held Kanan more than anyone after the injury, whether she completely remembered that or not. "I have put in the coordinates. Kanan needs help." Her lekku twitched slightly as she acted fully engrossed in piloting. "Hera. What did you do to sober up?" 

She let out a long breath. "I was already sobered up." Sabine shook her head. "Not enough to pilot." It was obvious she was hiding something. 

"Fine. Stimshot. Same way most people do." Sabine couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This is someone who knew better. Who never did anything like that. "Hera, why? We were going to get him help after we stabilized him." 

"I couldn’t just sit back there and do nothing with him like that." Sabine sighed. "A stimshot, with everything else you’ve got going on, with everything they have done to you- you’re risking serious damage. Or worse. How many different drugs can your heart take in a day?" Her grip tightened on the controls.

"How much can it take when it’s already working overtime? When it’s dealing with hormones not intended to be in a Twi’lek?" The suns had begun to rise, the transparisteel of the cockpit catching the twinkling light in its superficial scratches. She watched as the woman wiped away a few tears and cleared her throat. "If you don’t want this, they can help you. You don’t just drug yourself." 

She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "That’s not it. That wasn’t- that isn’t my intention. He’s not going to make it, is he?" She began to squish a palm into her thigh over and over again. Sabine had to look away- the urge to gut the person who had harmed her family was intense. "He’s not going to make it and he’ll never have even known."

"Then tell him." She said this as if the man could understand it in his current state. "I wanted to. I wanted to after this- this attack on Lothal was over. When we weren’t in this intense stage of war. When we could actually be happy." 

At this point, Hera didn’t care enough to hide the fact she was genuinely upset. Tears rolled down her cheeks and soaked into the suit untouched as she continued fidgeting with one hand and piloting with the other. The fabric was rough. Nearly rough enough to rub her hand raw. She didn’t care. 

She thought she might explode if she stopped, that the energy pulsing through her would prove too much to handle. "Sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you these things. I-" Sabine leaned over and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You don’t have to keep everything in. I can’t imagine what you must be feeling." 

She watched as both of the woman’s hands went back to the controls and gripped them tightly. She could feel her tense up all the way into her shoulders. Sabine backed off. "I’ll... drop it for now." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes me a bit to write and edit, I am exhausted so much of the time. It’ll get there eventually!


	4. Bacta

There was no certainty. Only the present. She felt a light tap on her shoulder, a cool touch through the jumpsuit. "Miss?" She ignored the robotic voice and placed a hand on the brightly-lit tank. 

She knew visiting hours were over and she had no plans to leave. Logically, she knew she could do nothing to help Kanan. Her only job was to wait. Wait to see if his skin would heal. Wait to see if he would be able to hear them. 

_Wait to see if he even wakes up._

"Excuse me, miss." She closed her eyes and answered the droid without turning to look at them. "I am not leaving him." The tone wasn’t rude, but left no room for argument. She listened as the droid begin to walk to the another part of the room. "Family may stay."

"I am family." She tapped the tank gently with one finger to no avail, not that she was actually expecting him to stir. "I know, miss. You informed us earlier. Your son told us you were unlikely to leave and your daughter dropped off a bag for you." 

The silence lasted only a moment as the droid tried to figure out what the woman was doing. "You are aware that we placed him artificially under. You are the one that gave permission." The hand that wasn’t on the tank moved to fiddle with the tight leg of the prison suit, barely able to grip it.

The blood had worn away from her fingertips in the previous hours, leaving the many ruddied markings with nearly perfect ovals of jade in their centers. "I remember." She lied. The last 12 hours had taken quite a toll and she’d barely be able to tell someone her own age. The torture, drugs, trauma, all the questions about Kanan’s medical history.

The way she’d shut down any sort of serious conversation with Sabine. Everything was eating away at her. She wanted Kanan to wake up. She wanted him to wake up and say some wise-ass remark at how worried she was. She wanted him to wake up so she could apologize. For everything. 

_Sorry for turning into my father. Sorry I didn’t tell you how much I cared._

She felt a few tears roll down her mostly numbed face. 

__

_Sorry that the inquisitors will be all over us even more soon. Sorry I wasn’t more careful._

__

She’d known the risk they’d been taking. She’d chosen to take that risk each and every single time. She’d known better. 

********

Her hand ran through his long hair as she slipped off the ponytail holder, not even looking at him. She slid it onto her wrist and leaned over onto his shoulder. "You followed me all the way here... to mess up my hair?" She leaned away again, enough to be able to see him fully. The light of the moons were reflected in his pale eyes, his sweet smile warming her. 

"Well, you could have messed up my hair on the _Ghost_." The slight breeze brushed through the tall grass around them, the occasional mews of nearby Loth-cats keeping her slightly grounded. "I- I was thinking about what you said earlier. You were joking, right?" Her heart began to race.

He seemed to really think about it. "I talk a lot. You’ll have to be more specific, Hera." She looked down at the grass beneath them, taking her left hand and twisting the tallest blades around her fingers. "You do know how I feel, right? I don’t just- you are-" she groaned at herself out of frustration. "I know. You can’t fully commit to a relationship right now."

"The Rebellion needs you." No hint of anger. No frustration. Just stating what he thought to be true. "I didn’t mean it like that, love." She placed a hand on his thigh as she saw him shift around looking for her. She relaxed slightly as he grabbed her hand. "How did you mean it?" 

********

"Have a good night, miss." The droid pulled her out of her memories before leaving the two of them alone. Hera closed her eyes and rested both hands against the tank.

_I’m here. I’m here. I’m here, love._

"I’m sorry, Kanan. For everything." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve about had it trying to edit this damn chapter. I just gotta post it so I can move ON!


	5. Voices

Ezra sat cross-legged on the bed in front of Hera, the two of them running over the group’s ongoing mission to liberate Lothal. Well, the mission was actually about TIE Defenders, but the crew considered the destruction of the fuel depot to be a victory in that category, even if it was damn near a pyrrhic one. 

_He will be okay. He will be okay._

The factories were unable to produce anything. Production was halted. Technically, in liberating Lothal, they were ensuring it would remain permanently halted. "It’s far too much to take on alone again. You know Thrawn will be back sooner than later." 

She nodded, scrolling on her datapad. "We won’t have to take them head on. We use the new protocol. Protocol 13." Ezra sighed as he attempted to focus. "Okay. Remind me what that one is again. Please." Hera smiled in the slightest as she exited from that section in the datapad. 

"Ezra, you know you don’t have to stay here, right? I know you brought up the mission just to distract me." She placed a hand on his shoulder and shot him a look of concern. "I know. Don’t worry. Sabine will be here soon- I promise we won’t-" 

Hera shook her head. "I’m okay." She raised an eyebrow. Regardless of how old he got, that particular tone still made him anxious. "Yeah- I- we- we just thought you maybe-" He stopped himself from saying what he thought. What not only he thought, but what Sabine and Zeb thought, too. 

"Maybe what?" She doubled down on the tone. He shook his head, somewhat embarrassed to have even assumed she needed watching. "Never mind. Good to know you still have that lovely, terrifying mom-voice. Been missing it since you left for the base. Good night, Hera." He jumped off the bed as she responded, Hera watching him until the door closed behind him.

Reaching to pick up the datapad, his words began to repeat in her mind again. And again. And again. _Lovely voice_. She began to hear it in more than just the way Ezra had just said it. Her eyes closed, her fingers dug into her thighs. Her breathing got shaky. 

She tried to relax by laying down and attempting to control her breathing. When she began to cry, she knew her attempts to stop what her mind was doing were futile. 

_Stop. Stop. Stop!_

********

_11 BBY_

"Hey, Heeer-a." Her name was said in a sort of sweet sing-song. She groaned as she stopped singing, thinking about ignoring the man she’d recently picked up. She continued working under the console of her ship. "What could you possibly want now?" 

She heard him walk closer. "You’ve got a beautiful voice, Hera. Even when you’re using it to scold me." She placed together a few stripped wires and grabbed a soldering iron from the box by her feet. "There is no way you are done fixing the _Phantom_." No. What he had done would take hours to fix. 

This was why she never let anybody use her ships. They never treated them with the same amount of respect as she did. Kanan ignored her accurate comment. "Actually, your voice is even more beautiful when you’re using it to scold me." She rolled her eyes. "Gods, if you spent as much time flying as you did trying to sleep with me, you’d rival me as a pilot." 

"You think _I’m_ trying to sleep with _you_?" He asked, fake offended. "I’ve played this game with plenty of women before, Kanan. I know how it works." He heard her move a panel. "Well then, you know- wait... what?" She continued to rewire parts within the console. "Did I stutter?"

He stumbled over his next words. "I- uh..." he cleared his throat, "I was unaware you..." She savored this moment. His struggle to put her backstory together was always a source of entertainment. "Unaware I what?" The slight smell of soldering caught his attention again. "Women." 

"Ah. I thought you one to understand the allure of a woman, twi’lek or otherwise. Am I an outlier on your track record, Kanan Jarrus?" She peeked up just to see his expression. His face had turned pink- something she’d seen few humans do in person before. It caused her to let a small smile form. She had to have gotten close to some sort of truth for his response to be so delayed.

"No- no. Believe me, I have a very diverse record. I’m just-"

"Just what? Jealous of the fact I have gotten to run my hand over the smooth lekku of a beautiful woman while you, I assume, have been only with humans?" She already knew her own statement to be inaccurate- but she couldn’t help it. He was absolutely adorable when flustered. 

********

_8 BBY_

She felt his hand run over her exposed body, barely even touching her skin at first, causing rushes of warmth to run through her. The clash with the cool of the cabin made the sensations extremely intense. It made her consider conserving fuel more often. Kanan leaned down and kissed her slowly, moving the hand he wasn’t using to balance over her chest. 

She began to play with his hair, not completely sure if he was telling the truth about it not being sensitive. If it wasn’t, what was the purpose of it? It was ridiculous. She decided lekku must simply be far more useful. He began to massage one of her breasts, deciding to move his mouth slowly down her neck until it took the place once held by his hand.

She then remembered that _some_ parts on the head of a human were quite useful in the sensory department. She felt the cool air run over the previously occupied spot as he moved to a new area. "You have a lovely voice, Hera." She quickly brought one of her hands over her mouth. "Oh, come on. That was a genuine compliment." He kissed down her body more passionately. "Lovely voice."

"I was just caught off guard." He hummed against her in response, receiving a tight tug in his hair that was out of anything but anger. 

********

_1 BBY_

It felt like she’d been held against the harsh metal of the device for a lifetime. The zaps running through her would most certainly cause her to lose what she hadn’t even gotten the chance to tell Kanan about.

The sadistic woman hadn’t asked her a single question. This had been solely for her own entertainment. She held back tears as she tried to catch her breath. Another zap, longer this time. "You have a lovely voice, General Syndulla."

_You have a lovely voice, Hera. You have a beautiful voice. Hera Syndulla has a lovely voice. Can’t you hear it echoing off the walls? Can’t you hear it over the sound of your precious heartbeat? Over the sound of blood rushing through your tender head? Over the crackling of the bright blue arches around you? Appreciate your voice for once, Hera, for this is the last time anyone will hear it._

Another jolt ran through her- strong enough she could barely retain consciousness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A New Dawn has lots of Earth names for things- an example being referring to Hera’s ear cones as simply ears. Therefore, I consider anything in that book to be a canon way to describe things. I don’t have to have a long Star Wars name for metal. It’s in the book. Bam. A shortcut. I don’t have to type durasteel every damn time I want some sort of metal alloy.


	6. Define

_Lovely voice-_

He awoke suddenly from the deepest part of a horrifying vision- one that felt extremely real. He waited to hear the familiar, calming words of the woman he’d swore he had fallen asleep next to just hours before. He waited to feel the soft hug against his side as she moved to comfort him in her half-asleep state.

There was nothing. He realized he wasn’t laying down. He wasn’t even home. He was... floating? What had happened? He had just left to get-

_Hera- Hera!?_

The crash! The torture! Had him making it in time been an illusion? If it had been long enough for him to be waking in a medcenter, he was positive she would be gone. Pryce would have ensured she suffered undue amounts of pain before letting her die and he was the one who had failed to stop it. 

One of the first sensations he felt was one equivalent to a vibroblade to the chest. Pain branching out and down his body as grief took him over in seconds.

_You just woke up, Kanan. Calm down. You’ve got everything blocked out._

He took a deep breath and focused, taking in all that he could. Pain. Heartbreak. Joy. Love. Grief. Hope. The medcenter had the Force running down its halls, a mix of life and death balancing the galaxy out. His warm breath pushed back against his face as he let it out slowly. "Kanan?" He relaxed at the familiar voice, hoping it wasn’t in his mind. "You’re safe now, dear." 

He sensed one of her hands on the tank he rested in. Her pain, her anxiety, her relief. The intense amount of love bounding from her felt nearly like being enveloped in her arms. "Want out of there?" Yes, he wanted out and he wanted to hold her. He wanted to know she was safe. Alive.

********

She helped him over to the bed, unwittingly getting in the way of the droid already attempting to do so. "Please, sit. I am programmed to do this job without assistance." She pulled herself back and watched as the droid guided him on to the bed that was adjusted to be able for him to sit nearly all the way up. 

The droid walked away for a moment as it gathered the next bit of supplies needed. It grabbed a cloth from the cabinet nearby and walked around her to begin to dry Kanan. 

"I can do that." Hera took the cloth from the droid and began to wipe the bacta away herself. "That is not necessary-" The droid’s limited movements weren’t able to keep up with an organic’s speed or agility, making it easy for her to avoid the attempts to recollect the cloth. 

"Miss, please stop. I have to be the one to provide the medical care-" She lingered on his arm, slowing her drying. "Are you telling me drying him off constitutes medical care?" Her lekku twitched and the droid looked her over. "You are agitated. Perhaps you should wait outside."

"Or perhaps I could remove your battery and solve this problem." She stopped a moment, shocked at her own words. "Are you threatening me?" There wasn’t any real reason to be this upset. She took in a few deep breaths, looking over at Kanan. "No- I- I apologize. I just really want to be the one to do this." She began drying again. "It is against-" 

"Just let her, please. You aren’t going to win." An unreal amount of relaxation took over her body. His voice may have been weak, but it was his. The wonderful voice she feared she’d never hear again. "Sir, you are aware-" 

"Yes, I am aware you are not going to win. I trust her. You may go." They hesitated. "If you are sure, sir." He shakily nodded. "I am." Hera watched as the droid left, waiting for the door to slide shut behind him. "Kriff, Hera. Have you been doing that to the staff the whole time?"

"No. Just that once." She looked back over at him, still decently soaked and shivering. His eyes were still tightly closed in pain. She felt tears running down her cheeks. "Kanan." 

"Do I look that bad?" She laughed a bit. "No. Do you want a readout? You are a patchy pink color. You are soaking wet. And you have a _terrible_ haircut." She leaned down slightly and continued to dry him off. "Maybe I should have let Sabine cut it." She ruffled his hair and dried his face. "She can see a heck of a lot better, love." She moved down, patting the new skin carefully.

He got quiet, the banter stopping completely. A shot of anxiety ran through her as she feared he’d fallen unconscious again. She looked back up at him slowly. His eyes were open, revealing that what had happened on the pod wasn’t an illusion. 

Her mind went back to that moment for a split second, the heat washing over her as she tried her best to call for him. To convince him to run for the ship. How the cloudiness had melted from his eyes allowing him to see her one. Last. Time. She pushed it away the best she could, clearing her throat. "Can you see me?" 

He nodded, still speechless. He cried for the first time in years. "You’re beautiful." She scoffed and sat the towel off to the side. She was weak. Sick. Still faintly bruised. "Well, if you think I look good now, you should see me after I clean up." He patted the spot on the bed next to him. "You don’t need to clean up." She climbed in next to him and hesitated to snuggle in until he said he was okay to be touched. "Do you need to tell me something?" 

Her breath caught for a moment. "What?" He took one of her hands and ran his thumb over her palm. "I missed you, Kanan. Are you sure me laying against this new skin is okay-" he nodded and adjusted so she could lay her head on his shoulder. "You are incredibly anxious. Spill it." She got slightly agitated. "How do you know that I am not just anxious about the fact you nearly died?"

"I know you better than that. You are never this hostile. Something is up and it isn’t the medcenter situation." He was impressive. "Yeah? Let’s see how well you know me." She smiled and took one of his hands to fidget with. "Oh, a game?" 

"I like to have fun. Sometimes." He let out a short laugh. "Hope it’s a short game. I know I just woke up but I am exhausted." She looked forward at the wall of information. "Oh, I don’t know. I really wanted to drag this game out." 

"Hera." She sighed and stopped fidgeting for a moment. How does one tell someone this? It felt as difficult as admitting love. A permanent admittance of their decade-long bond she’d never explicitly defined. Would this define it? Did she want it to? 

She’d wasted so many years holding back this part of herself over and over again- the fear of not doing enough to save and help people if she were to have any sort of connection to others. But wasn’t he already a connection all these years? Weren’t they risking things to save their family already? 

"What exactly are you?" It was asked so blatantly it threw Kanan off. "What? What do you mean? Human?" She held back a laugh. "I meant to me. What are you to me?" She felt him begin to fidget with her sleeve using his free hand. "I don’t know. You’ve never told me. What am I?" 

"A somewhat tolerable houseguest." He nodded. "That I am. What are you?" She sighed. "Pregnant." His blood ran cold for a moment. He knew she was no longer joking. She could hear his heart begin to race, so she leaned away to see his expression. He was crying again.

"Sorry. I kinda cut the game short." He cleared his throat. "That’s okay. Short games are okay." He let out a long breath. "What do you want to be to me?" She looked up at him as she asked, wiping away a few of his tears. "What we have been for one another in everything but name." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to stop being so picky or I will never get this thing done.


	7. Home

She stared at the ceiling in her cabin, tracing over the intricate designs she’d painted on it years earlier, designs she’d traced over in her mind thousands of times in many different situations.

They reminded her of her childhood home. Of her parents. Of her brother. Of the way most of the people she grew up with were now gone. She thought about the family she had now, and how they, too, could be taken from her. How one of them nearly was.

She sighed and tightly closed her eyes, a few tears escaping and rolling down her cheeks before she got the chance to wipe them away. She regretted telling Kanan that it was better to sleep in his own cabin until his skin healed. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him in her sleep.

He had told her it was okay to share a bed, but she had insisted that it wasn’t. She now realized how, given the last couple months, her insistence that he sleep alone must have sounded. How confused and unloved that would have made her feel.

She pushed aside the covers and jumped out of bed, plopping as quietly as she could to the floor. She manually pressed the door controls and walked across the dimly lit hall, opening Kanan’s cabin door and stopping halfway to his bed. The door closed itself behind her. 

What had started as a way to reduce her anxiety had suddenly become the thing causing most of it. Kanan was asleep, of course. What was she going to do? Wake him? He had gotten home only hours before. She wasn’t going to wake him from his first night in his own bed in weeks. She had to do something, though. Right now, she was just staring at him. 

_Oh, gods, Hera. This is weird. It is weird for you to stand here and watch him sleep. Go._

She turned to leave. "Are you okay, freykaa?" She stopped without turning back around, at first thrown off by the pet name. "Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I am fine, love." She had to get out of there. There was no way he couldn’t hear in her voice how she was holding back tears. 

She walked out into the hall and headed towards the refresher where she leaned forward against the vanity, nearly fully crying by that point. She stared into her eyes and tried to calm herself.

_You could have just apologized for the cabin thing and not cried. You really could have. Do you honestly think he is that upset over it?_

"Hey." She looked up to see his reflection, a few of the patches of bandaging soaked through. She cleared her throat. "Hi, Kanan." He waited against the door frame. "I shouldn’t have woken you. You need the rest. I am just...." 

_What’s some realistic reason someone would wake someone else? I just remembered the other night where you almost died so I got upset and then I got upset that I probably upset you earlier so I came over here?_

"I was feeling a bit sick." It was spoken softly as she made an attempt to hold back. Kanan looked her over, attempting to figure her out. Trying to see if this sickness was physical or emotional. He couldn’t tell.

He could feel the heat from her body, and it was warmer than his own. But it always was. She was trembling, but that could be from anything. "Do you need to go somewhere, Hera?" 

********

He watched her carefully. After the weeks they’d had, it could be anything. He closed his eyes and steadied his breath as she took her time to respond. His mind jumped to the worst possibilities first. That the interrogation droid had botched the injection so bad that she’d gotten an infection that had spread to her brain. 

He wondered if the electric shocks had damaged something vital. If Pryce had done more than what Hera had told him. He wondered if something was going wrong with the baby. 

He wondered if she was bleeding. He wondered if a loss like that would be more traumatic to her body than was typical due to the mix of species. If he was to inadvertently be the reason she died from blood loss- 

"I can start the Phantom and take you to the medcenter. Yeah. Let’s do that." She shook her head. "I am not hurt. I promise. I don’t need to go to a medcenter." She walked around him and back into the hallway. He turned to follow. She still looked nervous. She sighed and motioned with her head towards her cabin. She turned to him as the door closed. 

She gently rested a hand on his shoulder as she looked up at him. "Such a good and gentle man." She took her other hand and cupped the side of his face. "I can tell you are still anxious. I am fine, love. Just a lot going on in my head." 

She wanted to close her eyes to make admitting this easier. "I was wrong to tell you to sleep alone earlier. I would not have taken it as well as you did if I were in your position. That probably hurt you. I assure you it truly was so I didn’t tear off gauze or rip the new skin." 

He smiled and relaxed. She leaned in and kissed him. "I trust your choices, Hera. Whether or not I fully understand them. I wasn’t too worried. I am decently sure you care about me." 

She let out a long breath, speaking nearly too softly to be heard. "You can sleep on my bed. As long as you tell me if I am hurting you. And I mean it. I do not want you more injured." 

"Oh, a sleepover! And with my very good friend, General Syndulla!" She would have playfully pushed back his shoulder but she stopped herself. "You idiot. We aren’t _very good friends_ , we are best friends. There is a difference." 

He climbed up the short ladder and laid closest to the wall. She followed after. "Of course. Now, are we gonna tell spooky stories or what?" She rolled her eyes. "No. We are just going to sleep." He shook his head. "No, not until you actually tell me what is bothering you. The bed thing was a small part of something else." 

She found herself fidgeting with the sheet. "Nothing lasts. Nothing ever lasts. Everyone around me dies so young. I get comfortable with people for them to leave or die or go missing- and it hurts like hell. I keep falling for it again and again. I keep caring for new people. Then the cycle starts again." 

He sat up next to her and snuggled in closer. "You were almost next. Watching you that night, every loss showed back up at once as if someone had taken a blade to an old scar. My mother. My brother. Aunts. Uncles. Cousins. Friends. All the people that I-" 

She cleared her throat, doing her best to ignore the tears. She wanted to jokingly blame it on him. Tell him it was his fault she was this emotional. In a way, it was. The way he was so willing to die for his family twisted her insides.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d started to cry until she felt the gentle hug around her. She hugged back and let herself cry. "I don’t deserve to be the one- the one making it every kriffing time! My mother died at my age. My brother was only three when he died. Three, Kanan." 

"I don’t know how much more loss I can take and still feel like life is worth living once this war is over." He winced, hearing his old self in a large section of her anxious speech. He remembered how he had dealt with those feelings. His master would have been so disappointed in him if she knew the amount of drinking and fighting he did. 

But that time in his life had given him insight. It meant he understood how Hera felt now. She felt alone and at fault. She wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. She felt as if she was. He couldn’t lie and say everyone would always be fine. That nothing could have been done better or differently. She wasn’t stupid. 

"The only constant in life is change, Hera. I can’t promise what the galaxy will hold for us tomorrow, next year, or a decade from now, but I can promise that at this moment, you have me. You have this family. And whether it is us or someone else, you will _always_ have family." 

"I mean, we aren’t exactly as helpful as other twi’leks would be in certain things. But thats what research is for." She cracked a smile. "Don’t feel guilty over living. Do not feel naïve for loving others." 

_If only thinking that way came easily._

Love killed people. Love ripped people to shreds inside and out and threatened to leave a hardened shell of a soul when it was gone. To continue time and time again to let herself be vulnerable felt like the absolute worst choice. But wasn’t that what strength was? Vulnerability made life worth living. It was the part that cared about others. The part that joy and love came from. 

She wondered if every callous person was simply someone burned one too many times. If that was just what happened as you got older. The scars would build up so much you couldn’t truly be vulnerable and the work to lessen them was painful enough by itself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They are very good colleagues. 
> 
> Ever just say "fuck it, weeks of editing a single chapter is excessive" and give up?


	8. Group Chat

New Message from: Lothcat14   
22:43   
\- Will they hurry up with whatever they are doing? The walls are thin and this cannot be going anywhere good. Not good for me, anyway.

New Message from: RainbowDetonator   
22:43   
\- Ezra. I don’t think that is what is going on. I think they are just having breakdowns. There’s too much crying for anything else. 

LothCat14•22:44   
-Can I message Hera to make sure? These last couple weeks have been enough for me. I do not. Want to know. What goes on. Between them. 

RainbowDetonator•22:44   
-Leave her alone! No messages!   
-You don’t know the half of the month she’s had. 

Lothcat14•22:44   
-I am fully aware of what is going on. I am force sensitive. Good for them, but...   
-You know what. Forget it. I am going to listen to some music and ignore everything. Just in case. 

RainbowDetonator•22:45   
-Good. Leave them alone. 

LothCat14•22:45   
-I don’t know why I even talk to any of you. All of you frustrate me. 

RainbowDetonator•22:46   
-Hey. Rude. Go eat a snack or something.

LothCat14•22:46   
-Sorry. I am stressing out. 

**_You’ve been added to a new chat!_ **

New Message from: LothCat14   
22:46   
-And this is not helping. 

New Message from: GeneralKickass   
22:47   
-You two know I can hear your notifications, right? If you’re going to message about us this late, at least have the decency to turn the datapads on silent. 

New Message from: RainbowDetonator   
22:48   
-How do you know it is about you? And, Hera, with all due respect, I thought you would be a bit too preoccupied to notice. 

GeneralKickass•22:48   
-I am never too preoccupied to hear the two of you constantly setting off the notifications of all the datapads within a three klick radius. Who changed my nickname _again?_

New Message from: AFewAttachments   
22:48   
-I might have. What do you think we are doing, Sabine? 

RainbowDetonator•22:49   
-Not sure, but I know what I am doing. Thinking about the choices I’ve made to end up in this exact place in my life. Everything clicked for me just a moment ago. 

LothCat14•22:49   
-You forget your choices? I must have a better memory, then. I stole some crates now I live here. 

RainbowDetonator•22:50   
-Are you sure only that one choice got you here? 

LothCat14•22:50   
-Pretty sure. 

AFewAttachments•22:51   
-I was led here by the will of the Force. 

RainbowDetonator•22:51   
-"Will of the Force".

GeneralKickass•22:51   
-I have spent the last decade or so fighting the empire, because I made the choice to.   
-Therefore, that is how I ended up in this group chat. 

Lothcat14•22:52   
-You made the group chat so technically your choice to make the group chat is how you ended up in this group chat. 

GeneralKickass•22:52   
-I have destroyed so much over that decade. So many ships. Some of them I wasn’t even flying. 

LothCat14•22:53   
-Uh. You good? Kinda out of nowhere. It’s not your turn to have the next existential crisis.   
-Oooohh were you already having one? 

AFewAttachments•22:53   
-She gets a free pass this time, Ezra. As Spectre One, I grant her as many free passes as she needs. 

RainbowDetonator•22:54   
-"Spectre One", you are biased. We each get one existential crisis week and she already had hers. 

GeneralKickass•22:54   
You know what this chat needs? 

_**Hera Syndulla added Garazeb Orrelios** _

Lothcat14•22:54   
It needed Zeb? 

New Message from: KarabastKallus   
22:55   
Needed me for what? 

RainbowDetonator•22:55   
-Hera, you do realize he is the only one not up to date, don’t you? Should I give him the summary? 

GeneralKickass•22:55   
-Welcome to tonight’s family group chat, Zeb.   
-And no, I think he will be fine without the information. 

GeneralKickass•22:56   
-Wait. ONLY one? 

AFewAttachments•22:56   
-I do appreciate how we never just get out of our beds and talk in the same room after we change into pajamas. 

Lothcat14•22:56   
-Yes. We all know Kanan is in his cabin alone right now, wearing pajamas.   
-He is NOT in Hera’s cabin with the door locked. 

RainbowDetonator•22:57   
-He totally has on a full set of pajamas. Alone. In his cabin. 

KarabastKallus•22:57   
-Gotta admit, I’m a bit curious about the secret. It isn’t that those two are sleeping together, is it? That has never been a secret. I could have told you that years ago. 

GeneralKickass•22:58   
-All of you are terrible. Terrible. 

RainbowDetonator•22:58   
-I am innocent. The only pure Spectre. The rest of you are the terrible ones. 

Lothcat14•22:58   
-I do not like what that insinuates about Chopper. At all. 

KarabastKallus•22:59   
-Sabine, we are fully aware of why you volunteer to go with Ketsu. Now, what am I being left out of? 

KarabastKallus•23:00   
-You’re WHAT?!   
-Karabast, Hera! You were tortured! 

GeneralKickass•23:00   
-Ezra, don’t you think for a single moment I don’t know it was YOU who just told him. I can hear you. Thin walls. 

LothCat14•23:01   
-Fully aware of the thin walls.   
-What did you do to Kanan? Haven’t heard from him in a bit. 

GeneralKickAss•23:02   
-Nothing that he didn’t deserve. 

LothCat14•23:02   
-At least he died doing what he loved. 

LothCat14•23:03   
-DON’T COME OVER HERE GO BACK STOP MOVING   
-HERA   
-I APOLOGIZE PLEASE GO BACK 

RainbowDetonator•23:03   
-Well, looks like you get your cabin back to yourself, Zeb! 

KarabastKallus•23:04   
-The kid is trying to get into the walls. As if that will save him.   
-Hera can fit in the vents. She just makes Ezra do that because she would rather not do so herself. 

Lothcat14•23:04   
-She can? Great. 

AFewAttachments•23:05   
-She is very flexible. 

RainbowDetonator•23:06   
-I will take one for the team and answer this. Kanan, for the love of all things good, shut up. 

RainbowDetonator•23:08   
-The lack of response from anyone is very concerning. Was that comment taken as a compliment? Are Hera and Ezra in the vents?   
-I still hear notifications! Did you guys just start a new chat without me? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This counts as a chapter, solely because I say it does.


	9. Organics

"Where are you going?" His voice was barely audible as he rolled over to watch her. "Meeting. Lothal won’t liberate itself. If we go fast, we can get this done and not have Thrawn intervene." She changed out of pajamas and into her normal clothes. She ran a hand over her head and sighed. 

"Here. What happened to Thrawn?" He tossed over her cap that she’d left in the bed. "Thanks. And I am not sure, exactly." She adjusted the cap and took her headphones from the nearly empty worktable. 

Kanan stretched and got out of bed, walking up to her with a sleepy smile and hugging her. Her gentle laugh was enough to send warmth throughout his body. "I’ll be back in just a few minutes." She ran a hand over his back and sighed, relaxing into the hug even more. She could have fallen right back asleep. 

She might be back in a few minutes, but the way she was getting ready told him her return wouldn’t be to curl back up next to him. As the hug ended, she put her hand on his cheek and waited for him to lean down. "You know you don’t have to wait for permission. I’ll give you anything-" she put her finger over his mouth. "Anything I want. Yes. I know." 

She pulled his head down a bit and kissed him. "I want you to get some more rest, love. I’ll grab your meds and patches afterwards." She patted his shoulder before walking towards the door, his smile fading as he absorbed the words. "Wait. Rest? Shouldn’t I go? I haven’t even been informed of my role yet."

He walked after her. She stopped and turned back to face him, softening her tone as much as she could. "Kanan, I appreciate you wanting to help, but you’re in no condition to do so. I- we- didn’t assign you anything." For a split second, it felt like he’d been stabbed in the chest. 

"I understand I am injured but all of us are. You don’t have to make special allowances for me." Hera looked slightly away to avoid seeing his hurt expression. "They hadn’t wanted you to leave the medcenter. The rest of us were checked and released." The answer sounded overly rehearsed. 

"It’s not any special allowance. It is because your skin is fragile at the moment." She’d switched back over to daytime all-business General Syndulla. "I should be at the meeting, Hera." Her voice got more firm. "I don’t think it is required and you need sleep. I promise I will be back soon." 

Little trembles ran down her lekku, noticeable only to someone who’d spent thousands of hours with her. "It is important that someone else know the plan in case emergencies pop up." She sighed and closed her eyes, knowing if they kept up this back and forth they would be here for days. 

She did not want him knowing the plan. It was a reckless one, but Lothal needed to be liberated regardless of her personal feelings. They’d be careful. "Do not interrupt, okay? Let’s go."

********

"What in the- what kind of plan is this?!" Absolutely ridiculous. Ezra shushed him so Hera could finish the meeting. "Thank you. Mart and Gregor are going to pick us up in the _Ghost_. Sabine will have planted the explosives and I will have started the launch cycle. We wait until the dome is high enough off the surface to reduce damage to civilian homes and then detonate the charges." 

Chopper chittered. 

_**Make them pay! Make them pay! Revenge for mom! Revenge for Kanan!** _

"This is one of our top three worst plans. We can’t do this in this way!" Hera turned to him, the look on her face nearly enough to shut him up. "And you’ve got a better one?" Any plan would be better than the one they had. "Better than using you as bait? Low bar, Hera." Ezra could feel the tension between them. 

She tapped her hand on Kanan’s leg gently a few times. "Let’s talk." She motioned for him to get up so she could scoot out from around the table, leading him out to the hallway. Ezra turned to the others as they left. "I thought we weren’t telling him about using Hera as bait. We all knew he would freak out." 

"Can you blame him?" Sabine turned off the holotable as Zeb stretched. "Pryce nearly killed her a couple weeks ago. This is a stupid plan. It is risky." Ezra sighed and laid his head down on the table, cushioning it with his arms. "Doesn’t he trust her? We do this stuff all the time." Zeb looked between the two kids and let out a nearly silent laugh. 

"He trusts her. I just doubt he wants her around Pryce, and definitely not before the kit is delivered. The second that woman were to find out about it would be the second she used it against her." Ezra looked over at the wall, not moving to respond. "She wouldn’t have given us the idea if she didn’t think she could make it work." 

_**What’s a kit?** _

Chopper interrupted their conversation before it was able to get emotional. Zeb put his hands on his knees. "I suppose it is technically called a baby in their species." The droid seemed to soak in the words before rolling away towards one of the ports. "What are you doing?" 

_**Cancelling the order. I do not want one of those screaming, small organics on this ship. Do not deliver one to this ship.** _

The three of them watched as he went back through their order histories. This droid was older than any of them. He surely knew that wasn’t how this worked. Sabine held back laughter and cleared her throat to speak. "Chop, there’s no order to cancel. It’s not something she ordered." 

He backed away from the port and headed back to the others, confused.

_**What?** _

Sabine needed a good way to explain it. "When we are on missions and there are people with that bump? That’s where they come from. Not a shipment." He chittered indignantly. 

_**You think I don’t know what a pregnant person is? You don’t just magically get that way, Sabine. She ordered one and I will make sure it does not get here. She’s been out of her mind a bit since her last crash. This had to be an accidental transaction.**_

Zeb nodded. "He’s not wrong. Most of that was accurate." Ezra put his leg out a bit to stop the droid from returning to the port, earning him a shock from the spark projector. "Ouch, you sleemo!" He thunked the top of him. "There isn’t any order to cancel." 

He was getting further frustrated at their lack of understanding. He didn’t want to have to spell it out, but if that’s what those three dolts needed, he would.

_**You halfwits. Twi’leks do not reproduce asexually.** _

The three of them looked at one another, realizing the problem. A problem none of them had thought about. Those two had never not been touchy, lovey, or absolutely in awe of one another. They hid it so poorly. Even Thrawn had known when he ambushed them on Atollon. 

"Buddy. Chopper. We know that. We didn’t think they did." He waited for the rest of the sentence. The organics really did enjoy attempts at humor. There wasn’t anything more. Were they trying to tell him his mother did things like that? She was far too proper. 

_**She wouldn’t. Mom wouldn’t do such things. Who did such things to mom?** _

********

_**Kanan Jarrus, "Jedi Knight", I need to have a talk with you this instant!** _

He sped towards Hera and Kanan, stopping in barely enough time to keep from ramming into Kanan’s legs. He heard Hera sigh. "Chop, we are a bit busy right now. We cannot stop to talk to you. You’ll have to wait a few minutes." He waved his manipulator arms in frustration as they went right back to talking like he wasn’t even there. 

_**Not a talk with you involved, mom. A man-to-man talk. Me. Kanan.** _

Hera raised an eyebrow as she looked over at Chopper. "A man-to-man? That important?" She looked at Kanan and smiled, trying her best not to laugh. She was now curious. She wanted to know what was going on in the thoughts of that droid. "Well, we can finish our talk later, then. I’ll head back and wait for you two." 

"Hera!" She looked over her shoulder with a smile. "What? He needs to speak with you." 

********

Hera opened the galley door and was met with silence. "What did you guys tell Chopper?" Ezra scratched the back of his neck. "Nothing." She sat down and scooted back to her spot. "Zeb?" He wouldn’t look in her direction. "Sabine?" She hummed for a moment before responding. "We might have told him on accident about the baby." 

"'On accident'? You told him 'on accident'?" Hera looked back at the door. "Oh, I do not see that ending well." Shockingly, she could already hear the two of them walking towards the door. Chopper came in first, much happier than he had been minutes earlier. Kanan was a bit more hesitant to enter. His eyes were wide and his face was covered in dark blush. 

He sat next to Hera and cleared his throat. "The meeting can continue now. I think what we discussed earlier is a decent enough compromise, freykaa." She wanted to know what they had said to one another more than anything in the galaxy right now. It wasn’t the time. 

"Kanan is joining as backup. He will not engage enemies or carry large amounts of supplies or any type of backpack that would irritate the skin. It is still far too new, regardless of what he thinks." Ezra glanced over at Kanan. "Unless an emergency occurs." Kanan wasn’t going to follow the rules if there was valid reason not to.

"If the emergency cannot be handled by someone else. Emergency. Situation. Only." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I want your Moonglow pass."
> 
> Also, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE COMMENTS AND KUDOS!!! I love all of you. You are the best. I save all the lil emails that AO3 sends with the kudos and comments so when I am having a bad day, I can look at all of them again! 
> 
> I never know what to say to the comments but know my soul is like “!!!” Regardless of whether or not I respond individually!


	10. Phase One

Hera smiled as she left most of the troopers in the dust, turning sharply into an alley on her stolen speeder bike. Sabine’s part of the plan would take care of any remaining pursuers. 

She saw a bolt hit the dirt around her. 

_Speaking of that, it would be a great time to set that part of the plan into motion before the troopers get better aim._

Another bolt in the dirt. 

_Not that they will. I just don’t have time for this._

She hit her wrist comm. "Spectre Five. Light it up."

"Are you past our wanted posters?" Hera looked around. She was nearly positive they had more than one set of wanted posters, and what she had told Sabine to plant wasn’t deadly. Hera’s plan wasn’t to kill. Just to give them a _nice surprise nap._ To begin with, anyway. "You did plant stun mines, didn’t you?" 

Sabine sounded mildly offended, tapping the comm to respond. "Do you not trust me?" The sound of the motor echoed off the buildings on both sides and the sound of footsteps continued to grow closer. "I did until you said that. You know I won’t be able to determine which set of posters you are referring to. Which isn’t a problem, so long as you planted _stun_ mines." 

Kanan looked at Sabine, watching her body language carefully. It was 50/50 that the Mandalorian had taken some liberties, whether or not those liberties were deadly was unknown. He didn’t know what response he would have if they happened to be. 

She asked Hera another question to avoid answering the one asked to her. "Why are you okay with being stunned?!" Sabine could tell Kanan was getting anxious. She needed to stop messing around.

Hera felt the heat of blaster bolts rush by her head. "Please confirm these will only stun people." A bolt singed the fabric on her right arm. "And confirm it fast!"

 _I’m supposed to be the bait, not actually get-_

********

Kanan’s eyes widened as Sabine hit the detonator without responding to Hera. He took it from her hands, his mouth opening but forming no verbal response. His stomach twisted. "You- you didn’t confirm she was out of the-" Sabine took the detonator back. "I wouldn’t kill Hera. You know that. They aren’t deadly mines." 

"I don’t even want her stunned! They’d be able to take her in again!" Sabine placed a hand on his shoulder, still much lighter than she would have before the injuries. "She’ll be fine, Kanan. Have some faith in our captain." He ignored the little joke and tried to focus.

********

She was regaining control of the speeder after a small section had been blasted off when the ground began to shake. Parts of the alleyway and road exploded in blue light, bits of dirt and clouds of dust following immediately after. No, not just dirt. Dye. Blue. Orange. Purple. It splattered around like spray paint. 

The blasts moved closer and closer to her as she processed what was going on. She floored it and sped out of the blast zone towards the edge of town. She was gritting her teeth as she hit her comm. "Spectre Five, just so you know, I was not out of the blast zone and those are **not** the stun mines I told you to plant!" 

Sabine closed her eyes and let out a long breath before responding. 

_I’m getting another safety lecture later. Yay._

"Sorry. I-" Hera heard rustling as she looked to make sure the tracker on the bike was still semi-functional so Pryce could locate her. "Are you okay?! What kind of mines were they? I told her-" Hera groaned. She’d forgotten Kanan was waiting with Sabine. 

This was most of the reason she wanted him to stay on the _Ghost_. The newfound reminder of mortality caused by recent weeks had not waned, and it went both ways. She wondered if he still saw her injured the way she still saw him. 

_Oh, gods- you still see him as helpless. You aren’t helpless and neither is he._

"Spectre One, If I can talk, don’t you think I am conscious?" She was free of the claustrophobic streets and into the open field. "I- I- that’s not what I meant." She sighed, the tall grass hitting her legs. "Sorry, love. I am fine. Just a bit of paint on my clothes. Sorry I left you out of the op to begin with. It was immature of me." 

Sabine just looked up into the sky and groaned. "Its okay, Hera. It has been a stressful... as long as I can remember." Kanan tried to continue but Sabine pulled her arm back. "Don’t use her name on the comm and stop flirting. We have a mission." 

He raised an eyebrow and looked at Sabine. "Flirting?! Sabine, We’re-" the Mandalorian cut him off. "See? That look proves you have spent too much time with Hera this week." 

She hit the comm instead, still looking at him as she spoke. "We are in position a half klick from the tower. We will begin to move in as soon as Spectre Three relays Pryce’s position before sending the message to the others. Are you in position yet?"

********

_One transport and a ship- that’s all they sent this time. Good._

Hera watched as Pryce exited the ship, followed by a few troopers. Rukh wasn’t with her, which was a relief. "General Hera Syndulla, back to causing problems, I see." She watched as Pryce unhooked something from her belt. Something familiar. "Revenge for your Jedi?" 

Pryce tossed it gingerly into the air a few times, the light catching the polished surface. Hera had to hand it to her. She had been listening to Thrawn enough to know one of her weak spots. Although, it was also possible she’d figured this one out on her own. 

" _My_ Jedi? I don’t recall owning any Jedi." She tried to keep her expression neutral. If she thought Kanan was dead, that gave Hera the upper hand. "Ah, I forgot. Revenge for your master, then, Syndulla?" Those words made her ill- or maybe she was already feeling nauseous before. She began to worry she would get sick in front of the woman. 

_You’re okay. Focus. You have some meds in your right pocket that’ll help that as soon as you can get some water to take them with._

She had a new objective on top of her original one. She not only needed to keep Pryce distracted for a couple more minutes, but she also needed to get back that lightsaber. It meant a great deal to Kanan- a sword said to have a living crystal inside that sung just for him. 

A connection to his past, a connection to the closest person he had to a mother. In a way, his kalikori. It belonged on the _Ghost_ or on Kanan’s person and nowhere else. 

Her focus on the weapon had been noticed. Pryce smiled and ignited the blade, the familiar hum increasing her suddenly intense anger even further. "I assumed this would incite such a reaction." Hera hadn’t even noticed her own hands forming tight fists at her sides. 

She hadn’t consciously made her lekku twitch- and she certainly had not chosen to pale at the next wave of nausea. "You want this." Hera tried to calm herself and focus on the positives of the woman’s dramatic speech. Such as the fact it was giving the others plenty of time to sneak around behind her. 

Hera couldn’t help but smile a bit at the expression on Pryce’s face moments later as she heard the muffled blasterfire behind her, followed by hard thumps to the soil. She turned to look, a hand on the blaster still resting in her holster. 

Sabine shot it out of her hand as she pulled it out. She dropped both the blaster and the saber and clutched her now slightly burnt hand. "Sabine Wren. Hah. I was anticipating Bridger." Hera tapped her activated comm a few times in a pattern to alert the others. Almost Ezra’s turn. 

She turned back to the speeder and pulled out a set of binders before tossing them to Sabine. "Got this?" Sabine nodded. Hera smiled and pulled out the blaster from her boot. "Just tell me if you don’t. Her nervous system may benefit from a restart." 

Her confidence made Pryce laugh. "What do you plan to do? Turn me in? To whom?" She kicked back at Sabine in an attempt to take her feet out from under her. Sabine fought back, the whole thing lasting only moments before Pryce collapsed. "Hera! I was having fun!" 

"You can have fun later! Cuff her before she wakes up. Ezra is on his way, the others are standing by. Where’s Kanan?" Sabine let out a short laugh as she finished cuffing Pryce. "Don’t worry. Your buddy is waiting just over there. He’ll be ready to hop on one of the ships, assuming this plan works." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I, perhaps, should have written out more than an outline before I posted the first chapter! Oh well. It’ll get there eventually, even if I have to fully write each part again and again.


	11. Dome

The wolf walked closer, causing Pryce to trip and fall over her own feet. She’d barely landed before she started to kick herself backwards. "How long are you planning to drag this out? You won’t win." Ezra calmed his breathing as Pryce continued to smile. 

"You cannot seriously think this plan of yours will work." Ezra nodded to the wolf. It began to snap at Pryce’s head, narrowly avoiding actually biting it. "Come on, Hera’s waiting." They had a time window they could work in and it was shrinking. 

Thrawn would return eventually. 

Hera had already commandeered Pryce’s ship, gotten everything ready to go, and collected the weapons Pryce had dropped. She’d given Sabine the blaster (and gotten a vibroblade in return, despite explaining that they were not trading weapons). 

This brought her total weapon count up to three, if she included the lightsaber attached to her side. She’d not only clipped it to her for safekeeping, but had taken the webbing on her suit and woven it through the d-clip multiple times. 

If Pryce wanted it, she’d have to cut it free from Hera’s corpse. 

Unfortunately for the governor, Hera wasn’t planning on dying. As a matter of fact, the days plans barely even involved Hera at all- she took risks often in her life but she wasn’t stupid. She’d let Kanan join them on the condition that he be barely involved as well. 

It’d been a few weeks at this point and his skin had nearly returned to a hue healthy for humans, but that did not mean it was up to full strength. She knew it was still tender. The way he now winced at any little injury worried her more than she’d let him know. 

Not that he couldn’t sense each time her emotions spiked. She felt terrible for thinking like this and she felt even worse knowing that he knew what she was thinking, essentially. It was a stupid thing to worry about in the first place. The tenderness was exactly what they’d been told to expect and the skin would return completely to normal eventually. 

_For the thousandth time, you cannot treat him like he is fragile. Let. Go. Let go and trust that he will be okay. Trust in his choices._

Her focus was brought back to the ship as she heard the governor getting closer. "You’ll actually be my prisoners as soon as we land. Nobody is going to fall for this." Hera rolled her eyes as the woman boarded. Kallus followed, along with Sabine and Ezra. No Kanan. She felt anxiety creeping in again. 

Sabine seemed to sense it. She walked forward and placed a hand on the back of the pilot’s seat. "Hey. Are you positive you’re okay to fly? You, and I mean no disrespect, seem a bit distracted." She closed her eyes and sighed. "Where is he?" 

"One ship over. With Zeb and Hondo." Hera nodded slightly and tried to see in the other ships unsuccessfully. It didn’t matter. They had to go. She had to trust. 

Sabine moved to stand next to Ezra in the back, helping him to keep watch on the governor. The two of them looked at Pryce, who had sat down and wasn’t able to stand herself up due to the binders. She looked aggravated.

Sabine asked Pryce quietly. "What? Floor not comfortable?" Hera spoke in a normal, barely even warning type tone. "Sabine, don’t mess with her. It’s inappropriate to- it’s not very polite to do that to prisoners." Sabine could feel her face warming. How could Hera act like the woman didn’t deserve to suffer? 

"Worry not, General Syndulla. I am not to be your prisoner much longer." No, what was inappropriate was everything the horrid governor had done. Sabine taunting Pryce absolutely failed in comparison to Pryce electrocuting, drugging, and interrogating Hera all while her body was already stressed. "Can’t you just-" 

She realized it was pointless to get so worked up and a bit of fear was struck into her soul when she realized Hera may assume she was still talking to her and not to Pryce. One thing Sabine always regretted was getting into disagreements with Hera, even accidental ones. 

Once she was positive Hera wasn’t going to bring up the little outburst, she turned her attention back to Pryce. Pryce, who had tried to kill Kanan. She couldn’t imagine the searing pain he’d withstood that night _for them_. He deserved so much more from life than to be taken out by someone as cruel as that woman. 

She was startled by a hand on her shoulder. "Hey. What’s wrong?" Ezra stared intently at her and she was taken aback by how old he looked. It felt like all those years had flown by in a matter of months. She watched the sky behind him move more and more slowly until it returned to its natural speed. She barely even budged as the ship hit the landing platform. 

"It’s nothing." Everyone began leaving the ship and getting into position. Ezra hadn’t let go of Sabine. "Ezra! We’re in the middle of an op! I- I don’t want to talk about it at the moment. Maybe later? Is that okay?" He seemed to struggle forming a response. 

"What is it?" He sighed and looked into her eyes. "I’m counting on you." He patted her shoulder before letting go and walking around her. She turned to follow. "For what?" Ketsu had already gotten the door open and poor Melch was sliding down the transparisteel of the control room’s windows. 

"You’ll know." 

********

Hera was a bit shocked at how easily the Imperials had accepted the order. They were stupid, but this was impressively so. The only one who even questioned them in the first place had given in quickly and Protocol 13 was initiated nearly completely peacefully. Whenever Kanan got up here, he’d be happy. 

What was taking him so long? She walked up to the large window and looked out on the city for a moment before walking back to watch Ryder. She needed to focus. The people were going to be free. This dome and all the Imperials would be _gone_. 

Kanan ran into the control room with a few stragglers that’d been caught in a small fight with troopers. He sounded upset. "Hera, sorry. I-" She turned around and smiled, shaking her head. "Have nothing to be sorry for, love." She gave him a quick hug. He tried his best to return the hug fully. 

He placed a hand on her shoulder after they broke apart. Pryce stared at him, confused. She thought she might have been imagining things, that maybe Hera had somehow gotten drugs into her. She let her curiosity win and she spoke out loud, accepting that she may well be simply drugged. "I killed you." 

Kanan looked over. "Hate to tell you, but I don’t think I am dead." Pryce only scoffed in return and looked away towards Ryder, acting interested in his actions while still somewhat watching Hera and Kanan. 

A minute movement caught her attention, one made by Hera as she reached up and pulled Kanan’s face down to her own. Her other arm rested in a way she found... odd. She’d done it earlier, too. It didn’t seem to be a completely conscious choice but it was one Pryce hadn’t seen from Hera until today. It clicked. 

_Oh, hells, please tell me she’s gone and managed to get herself knocked up in the middle of this disaster!_

__

Pryce felt giddy. This bit of information would go a long way in the Empire and it made each little harmful action to the woman ever so slightly more satisfying. Not only would she be hurting Hera, upsetting the Jedi. She’d be hurting Hera _and_ what she was positive was the Jedi’s child. 

__

Further motivation to get out of these binders and find a datapad to warn Thrawn. Warn Thrawn and use her new knowledge to her advantage. The possibilities were endless. Assuming it was Force sensitive, it could become an Inquisitor. To kill her two rivals using something they’d made out of love, regardless of how many years she would have to wait, would be something beautiful. 

__

She watched as Kanan let go of Hera’s shoulder, allowing her to move up to the controls. Pryce took the opportunity to sneak away into the corridors. 

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I, once again, want to thank all of you! Your comments and kudos and interaction make this fun!


	12. Formal Surrender

Hera shut down the controls and let out a low, frustrated growl. To have gotten so close to victory, only to have had Thrawn show up at the last second- 

His Star Destroyer now hovered just close enough to the Dome to block any chance for a controlled launch and detonation. 

She turned her attention to the small holoprojector beside her as it warbled to life. "Your spirit never ceases to amaze me, Hera Syndulla." Anger began to further build in her chest as her hands clenched around a metal bar under the control panel. She knew it was making her nausea worse. 

There was really no point in acting like it was solely from the typical source as of late. Her body was stressed from the inside out. Every single time she thought about her personal life for more than a few moments all her brain could formulate was a million reasons she was absolutely kriffed. 

"And your arrogance me, Thrawn." Kanan began to walk towards her. Hera signed with her tchin in a nearly violent motion the human knew to mean "Do not intervene, Kanan Jarrus, so help me gods-". Not an official lekku sign by any means, but a sign he knew better than to ignore. 

He stayed back a ways and watched. 

_I should not be finding this as absolutely hot as I am. We are in danger- but hells. She looks like she could rip the arms clean off a stormtrooper right now. Maybe she will and I can watch._

"General Syndulla, you have been a most impressive adversary. Your piloting and survival skills are commendable. The mere fact you are standing here, doing this, so soon after losing your Jedi shows your strength." She looked behind her a ways to spot Kanan. Pryce must have bragged to everyone. 

"You lost your entire fuel supply, Thrawn. We won. Your factories aren’t running, are they? We lost one soldier. You lost everything." He smiled slightly but remained as serious as ever. "People are a form of art, Syndulla, and your group I have studied well over the past couple years." 

"Your specific cell is more than just a few tossed together misfits. It’s purposefully crafted to resemble something like a family unit." It wasn’t intentional- it just _happened_. She had set out nearly alone. Only her droid. 

"You shove away attachments only to have them take up residence in the front of your mind anyway." Hera shifted uncomfortably on her feet, still holding her stance otherwise and keeping eye contact with Thrawn. "I know you are trying to throw me off. It’s not going to work. This trick has nothing to do with the fact you’ve lost." 

A look of something nearing pity. "I know the Jedi was more than a soldier to you. It doesn’t matter how much effort you put into resisting it- the end result was the same. You shoved him away despite loving him and it is your own fault entirely that he perished in such an awful way." Hera didn’t care if Kanan was in the room with her, not at all dead.

The words sent her into a mild panic as she tried to calm herself. 

_Don’t cry. No reason to cry. He is okay. He is okay- you didn’t mean for this to happen! It’s... it is your fault. The entire mess._

Ezra walked up beside her, now sensing her distress was getting far too strong to power through alone. "What do you want?" He looked at the young man. "Your formal surrender." Hera crossed her arms, somewhat focused again. 

_Your fault, Hera. Your fault he is hurt. He should have left you to be tortured but you knew he wouldn’t._

She cleared her throat and shook her head, attempting to knock the thoughts away. "We have the advantage, Thrawn. We won’t surrender to you." His expression remained unchanged. "Not you, General. Hand over Bridger." Hera listened and tried to place the faint whir- 

"Hand yourself over or watch your home destroyed, for all you’ve done is moved my assets into safety." Hera felt herself pale as she placed the sound. She turned to Chopper so quickly Ezra was nearly smacked across the face with a lek. 

Ezra backed out of her way. "Chop! Raise the planetary shields!" Moments later, a flicker of the power. Hera looked around and waited to see what came back to life.

_**No power at the shields. Overridden at generator.** _

She looked at the locator panel on the wall and over at Kanan. "Keep Thrawn busy. Keep Ezra here." She turned to leave. "Wait! What are- why-" he stopped, realizing both questions were stupid. She was going to fix the shields and she was doing so in order to save lives. He sighed and turned to the droid. 

"Chop, can you tell who turned off the generator?" He hid his panic only somewhat well. 

_**Wouldn’t you like to know, horny boy? First, you looked at mom on that stupid muddy planet and now-** _

"Are you still upset about that?!" He chittered more, mostly insults. He knew the droid liked him and was simply being himself but Kanan did not have the time for it. 

"I am not going to have this argument right now. I am not going to listen to a full decade of bantha fodder you’ve got on file to blackmail me with, Chopper. I need to know who is here to make sure it isn’t someone who could hurt Hera." 

_**Hurt her? She’ll kick their asses. I also have all of those records on file. 'Xiaan Dura- took Dira’s juice during lunch.' Is the first entry.** _

"You just keep track of everything?" He chittered in the affirmative. Kanan sighed. Chopper was right, Hera would likely be able to kick the asses of mostly anyone getting in her way. She did not want him getting involved, not with the injuries he was still healing from. 

That didn’t mean he couldn’t send someone else. "Zeb! Go with Hera. Generator." He nodded and ran to find her. He let out a short laugh before running his hand through his hair and ruffling it a bit. "What’s so funny?" 

He looked up at Sabine. "Absolutely nothing. Why does she do that? I want to- I understand why she does it but why did _she_ go this time? Is she not thinking?" She sighed. "Kanan, likely habit. I am sure she’ll be careful. She did promise she would be." 

********

Torturing Hera was damn near the most relaxing thing Arihnda Pryce had done in years. To hold the life of someone so mutinous in her very hands had been a power trip beyond belief and _she’d wanted to savor it_. 

She’d wanted to kill her, yes, but she’d wanted her to suffer first. Hells, she thought her fun had ended early at a couple points. The way the twi’lek had gone limp only to be held up by the straps around her- the way her body was nearly smoking from the constant electrical current, aftershocks jolting her muscles. 

Killing her would have hurt the Jedi. She had counted on it. She wanted him to lash out so she could strike a deadly blow to him as well. Pryce closed her fists tightly out of frustration, her hands still in binders. She smiled as an astromech rolled by. 

"Hey. These got stuck on me during training. Can you get them off of me?" It happily chittered and did so, wishing her a good day as it left. Earlier today, Pryce had planned on killing Hera. But now, with this new information- she’d hate to waste a Force user with no allegiances. 

She could kill Hera later. Only reason she would kill her today was if she put up such a fight that she couldn’t capture her. She wasn’t leaving this dome a free woman regardless. 

********

Hera quietly snuck into the room with the generator, looking around for anyone who stood out. It looked like mostly typical Imperial workers, standing at their posts. This might be easy, after all. 

Zeb and a few others had followed after her, she did her best not to take it too personally. She spoke quietly. "Zeb. I am going to look for the manual override. Watch my back." He nodded and she jumped down to a different catwalk. Their group wouldn’t remain unnoticed for long. The Empire didn’t hire many Lasat, Twi’lek, or older people. 

Zeb refocused his attention when he heard stuff falling below him. "Zeb! Now’s a good time for assistance!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I don’t think I have anything to say this week!_ I am shocked!


	13. Generator

Zeb watched as Hera narrowly dodged a weapon he, at first, confused for one not unlike his own. Shimmering electrical arcs sparked as the staff slammed with a crack against the glossy catwalk below. For being within someones killing range, Hera seemed rather calm. Happy, almost. 

_Is she having fun? Has the stress gotten to that woman? Has she lost her mind?_

Zeb thought through his options as Hera practically taunted who, he was nearly positive at this point, had to be Rukh. He was the only being he’d ever seen that looked quite like that. "I figured that toss over the edge of the Dome would have killed you." Hera jumped out of the way again, too nimble for him to actually ever successfully hit her. 

Rukh stopped for a moment to rethink his strategy, keeping a careful eye on the woman. She made no move for the lightsaber on her side, nor the blaster on her boot. She was smiling. He had weaponry that could fry her from the inside out in seconds and she was smiling.

This woman did not fear death. "Ah. You need a break, buddy?" He growled and she heard his deep voice for the first time that day. "No." She ducked under his swing and summersaulted behind him. "Your amateur combat skills will not hold long against me." She raised an eyebrow. "Amateur? Surely you-"

She stopped mid-sentence as something fell onto him. 

_Not something. Someone._

"Garazeb Orrelios! That was not a safe thing to do." Zeb fought with Rukh and successfully took his weapon and tossed it over the side. "And your plan was completely safe."

"You didn’t even know my plan!" Zeb punched Rukh on the top of his head repeatedly with increasing force. "What kind of plan involves taunting an assassin?! Is this what you do on solo missions? Karabast." Hera crossed her arms and leaned back slightly on one of her legs. "Excuse me?"

"Hera, are you serious?" She softened up a bit and began to smile again. She stuck her leg out to trip Rukh as he stumbled around with the lasat on his back. He fell forward and Zeb landed on top of him. "Don’t look at me like that. I’m being helpful, I am helpful." He growled under his breath. 

She was... motioning? The tip of one of her lekku was no longer simply hanging behind her back. It was pointed towards the floor beside him. A blaster. Her blaster, in fact. She’d tripped him in order to give Zeb a weapon. It had been rather stupid of him to leave the control room without his. 

Kanan’s voice had sent panic into his bloodstream. He’d just ran as soon as the man had requested it of him, with the understood meaning of "She’s far too frustrated to think clearly right now, go make sure she doesn’t get herself killed." 

At the moment, things seemed to be working the opposite way. She was fine. She was thinking ahead. He took the blaster as quietly as he could before Rukh could wiggle himself out from under him. 

********

The choice to disobey Hera was one Ezra did not take lightly. It wasn’t that this particular choice would get him disciplined or disappoint his family. Not exactly, anyway. This was truly one of selflessness and much like Kanan in the weeks before, he was willing to sacrifice himself for others to live. 

Sure, his plan did not involve dying, but there was a high chance he would. Despite Sabine and Kanan going over alternatives nearby, he knew their ideas were to be useless. Nothing else would safely work. They were grasping for any hold they could get on their currently seemingly fragile family dynamic. 

He didn’t blame them. Life was changing far too quickly for them to come to terms with it. What life had been like just a few months prior now felt like a distant memory as they all tried to recategorize everyone in their minds, figuring out the adjusted roles they all were to play. 

The multiple new _complications_ presented ample room for anxiety and confusion. He closed his eyes and focused. He focused like he was taught to. He cleared his mind. 

_You cannot change the passage of time. You can only grow with it or have it overtake you until you are frozen in fear._

It was his turn to sacrifice for the greater good. He’d found where he was needed most. 

********

Hera gasped as the two men fell over the side onto the now slowly powering up coils. "Zeb!" She turned to the controls and swore under her breath, beginning to undo what she had done moments earlier.

Instead of being able to use the blaster, Zeb had only been able to continue fist-fighting him. He never was able to get far enough away to properly aim. The sound of the arcs sent panic and pain through her. It was difficult for her to hold her arms and hands steady enough to hit the correct sequence of buttons. 

"Hera! Don’t!" He grunted as he kicked back Rukh again. "I got this! You can head on back to the control room." Hera watched for another few moments, her hands still trembling on the controls. There was absolutely nothing she could do to help that wouldn’t leave hundreds or thousands of others open to bombardment in their own homes. 

Zeb wanted her to leave so he could die. So she didn’t have to see. Her crew was pitying her and she did not desire any pity, recently tortured or not. She wanted some sense of normalcy. Stability. She wanted to be in control again- she wanted the rush of adrenaline and then to rest at the end of the day, with her family, on her ship. 

She didn’t want this newfound panic response that trapped her in her thoughts more now than ever before. She had never been as unsure of anything as she had been lately. She mindlessly stunned an Imperial worker running up on her, watching as they, too, fell to the coils below. She felt faint as she began to smell the burning flesh- 

_Kanan. Kanan. Kanan._

She bit back tears and moved to the edge of the catwalk, wanting to check on Zeb again. She was not losing family today. She couldn’t see him. Hera relaxed slightly when Zeb’s hand grabbed the catwalk by her feet, only to tense up again when Rukh screamed as the arcs took him over. Zeb pulled himself up beside her and smiled, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Well, that was easy. Let’s head back to the others. Blow this disaster." 

She smiled crookedly. "You can head on. I need a minute." He studied her expression. "Are you alright?" She nodded as she looked down at the arcs. Down at the bodies. "I will be along in a couple minutes. Keep planning on how to get that Star Destroyer out of our way." 

He walked away and motioned for the others to return with him. She had to calm herself down before getting anywhere near Kanan, her anxiety was something he didn’t even need the Force to sense. He didn’t need the distraction. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depression is kicking my ass. I promise I am still writing and editing this story, though!!!


	14. Sparks

She rested her hands down on the controls in front of her as she took in the aftermath of the relatively small confrontation. No living beings remained in the room with her, only the smell of burning flesh mixed with a faint metallic undertone that she could practically taste on her tongue. 

They were so close to achieving their goal. They couldn’t have given up at this point, but that didn’t make Hera feel any better about the entire situation. She wanted a break. She _needed_ a break. She’d had enough meds formulated for humans to last a lifetime and, quite frankly, most of the smaller medical facilities here had no clue about anything beyond humans, rodians, and a couple other more commonly seen species. 

Not a ton of her kind stuck around here. Hell, even on Ryloth, her situation was not super common. Most of the time when people heard of something like this, it was a much less loving type relationship that had gotten them that way. 

Not many slept with humans by choice. Not many that did sleep with them by choice were stupid enough to do so while unprotected. Likely were not stupid enough to do so in an alleyway, either. 

_Gods, though, his eyes were absolutely stunning in the light of the moons. His hair being down? A bonus. The adrenaline of running and hiding from troopers? Even better._

In all fairness, it had been a while and she would do that again in a heartbeat. The longer she thought, the more she realized she would totally do that now, despite the fact they were all in what was, essentially, a ticking time bomb. 

_Gods, Hera. Focus. You don’t have to be like this every time you get a bit of adrenaline. Adrenaline works for so many other things. Use it to get back to your family in the control room, where you will not tackle Kanan._

She’d be able to feel his hands lightly trace her tattoos and send trembles down her spine later, when they were all safe. 

********

Kanan wasn’t sure the exact moment he’d fucked up, but he was positive he had. Ezra had snuck out. Pryce had snuck out. Zeb was back without Hera. "Give me that comm." He turned it on and connected it, getting ready to speak to Ezra when he saw them. 

Dozens of them. Everyone in the control room froze as the giant creatures calmly glided in and began destroying the fleet. "Kanan, you could have told the rest of us about this purrgil plan." He looked back at Sabine. "I didn’t know about it." 

More and more appeared. "This is incredible. His powers must be advancing greatly if he could lure these creatures all the way to Lothal." There was something beautiful about how calmly they were destroying the ships at first. "Which ship did Ezra go to?" 

"Chimaera. That one." Kanan sighed and spoke into the comm. "Ezra, what are you doing?" 

"What you taught me to do." He thought for a few seconds. "I haven’t taught you anything about calling purrgil to aid in your liberation of a planet!" Sabine smiled despite the circumstances. "I meant finding where I was needed the most." Kanan could feel his heart breaking. 

It felt completely different to hear it in Ezra’s voice. It never hurt like this to hear it in his own. "Ezra, we need you here. I respect what you’re trying to do, but we care about you." They watched as more purrgil showed up, now attacking the ship Ezra was in. "Please! Ezra! They’re-" 

"They’re not hurting me, Kanan." Sabine lightly tapped his shoulder to point towards the now-glowing purrgil and the now busted windows of the Chimaera. "Ezra! I mean it! They’re going to jump and that ship is open to space. Get back here." There wasn’t any immediate response. 

"I’m sorry, Kanan. I have to see this through. I love all of you. You all mean the galaxy to me. May the Force be with each of you." He heard the comm disconnect. He frantically tried to get it reconnected. "Kanan, he did that. You aren’t going to get the connection back." The glowing became brighter, the sequence of blue faster. 

"The kid’s really done it this time." Kanan nearly fainted as the purrgil finally jumped. He stared at the now barren sky where his padawan had been moments before. Sabine interrupted his trance. "We’ve got to find Hera and get out of here. Start the launch cycle. We can figure out where the purrgil went once in safety." 

********

Hera froze at the edge of the doorway as she started to leave the generator room. Some small portion of her mind was telling her something was going to happen, soon, and that it was not to be in her favor. She mentally checked which weaponry she still had. 

Her long-time blaster was gone for good, it’d been knocked out of Zeb’s grip when he and Rukh had toppled to the coils. Kanan’s lightsaber was still on her belt, but it was so tightly tied multiple times she had no way of getting it removed without lots of free time. She wasn’t going to rip her belt up. 

_Rip my belt up? Sabine’s present!_

The small vibroblade the Mandalorian had given her in trade on the ship. She still had it! She pulled it carefully from its spot in between the leather vest and undershirt where it had remained wrapped in a thick fabric all afternoon. It felt right in her hand as she tightened her grip around the handle. 

_Maybe this trade was okay, after all._

She took in a deep breath and stuck her head into the hallway to check her surroundings. She quickly pulled back, narrowly avoiding a punch to the face. She could’ve sworn her heart had stopped. She didn’t need another look to know who it was. 

"Always a pleasure seeing you again, Governor Pryce." She had promised Kanan that she wasn’t going to physically fight anyone today, so long as he kept out of the way, too. He had. He’d hung back. A good man. 

And now, here Hera was, right back in what was sure to be a fight deadly for one of them. "By the way you are hiding behind that doorway, you’d think it wasn’t actually a pleasure to run into me." She watched the faintly vibrating blade in her hand as it reflected the glow of the electrical arcs in the room around her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know when Jacen was conceived. I’m taking liberties. Like I have with everything else. Even if that little bit in Kindred kinda cracks me up. I’m changing it.


	15. Pryce

_Fuck. This was a terrible idea. Running off alone was a terrible idea. Kanan was right._

Honestly, her entire plan for the day had been stupid, risky, and overconfident, at least where she was concerned. Stupid plans occur when they are made in times of distress. She had planned most of this particular mission in the medcenter while waiting to see if Kanan would make it. 

She hadn’t been overly concerned with her own life at that point. But now? A future with her family dangling in front of her, whole and safe- a future she’d willingly put at risk multiple times the last few months- 

It hit her that she wasn’t solely living for her own life, not that she ever thought she was. She’d risk her life for others again and again and see that as selflessness. It was, in a way. It would be. It would be if she didn’t have family risking their lives to save hers. 

She held the blade more tightly and closed her eyes. 

"Oh, trust me. It’s a pleasure. I just wasn’t expecting your visit. I thought you‘d be in the control room still." She thought through her current options. Fight, risking both her life and the life of her child. Not fight, risking both her life and the life of her child. 

_Wow! Hera! Great choices! Amazing ones!_

She really did not want to drag anyone else into this, but there was a hell of a lot she didn’t want to be going on... going on. She turned her focus to her wrist comm just long enough to bring up a small prerecorded message that she could send to Chopper, one that would be nothing more than mindless, quiet chitter to Pryce. 

While totally unspecific, it would be enough to let her droid know she was in trouble. Enough so the droid would stun Pryce when he saw her. She kept the message up in case she needed it. "It got boring in there, dear." Hera rolled her eyes. 

She didn’t answer, which agitated Pryce. "I just want to talk." Hera scoffed. "Talk? I think we’ve spoken enough." She heard the woman walk away from the doorway. "What harm could talking possibly do, General?" Hera scolded herself for her next decision as she made it. She took in a deep breath and entered the hall with Pryce, quickly scanning over the woman for weapons.

Only one poorly-concealed vibroblade. "What did you absolutely have to speak with me about?" 

********

"Okay. This should work- assuming the power has been completely restored and assuming Chopper correctly rerouted it." Sabine looked over the controls again, intimidated by the complexity. Chopper angrily chittered in defense of himself. 

"And what’s the plan for getting out before it all goes to hell again?" Zeb looked around for any ships. "The _Ghost_ is supposed to be back around in a few minutes, and I have weapons. Watch this." She backed away and began shooting at the windows with both blasters she had in her holsters. 

"Sabine! Stop!" She ignored Kanan and Chopper chittered in delight as the energy bolts hit the window in quick succession. "Okay, Zeb! Go for it!" He ran forward into the cracked transparisteel, busting it out, leaving jagged edges. Kanan closed his eyes and sighed. 

"What’s with the attitude? I am already getting lectured later about the whole 'you set bombs off around Hera' thing." She kicked a piece of the jagged transparisteel out. "You cannot possibly- there’s no way in hell you thought I would be totally fine with you setting bombs off when Hera was in the area." 

"She was fine, wasn’t she? Biased. You’d have let me set them off without problem if Chopper had been in the area." Kanan looked at the droid, who had, yet again, been angered. "He can be put back together. You, Ezra, Zeb, and Hera cannot." 

********

Pryce watched Hera’s movements closely. "What did you hope to achieve coming here, completely unprepared? All you’ve done is gotten yourself stuck in a building with thousands of people who want you dead." Hera stayed back a good ten or so feet. "I don’t plan on staying in the building much longer. Power is back." 

"You’d still launch the dome, knowing it would crash into the Seventh Fleet and cause unseen numbers of casualties to citizens?" Her tone rarely fluctuated from the one she always had. One meant to indicate exactly how she felt about others without having to say explicitly. 

Others were under her, lesser. They always would be. "The fleet will be gone, if it isn’t already. I have faith in the others. It’s a new day, Arihnda." Hera put away her blade, still easily accessible if needed. "There’s still a chance to make things right." Pryce looked her over, a bit shocked at first. She started to laugh. 

"You want me to join your little terrorist group?! Oh, Hera, you really are delusional." Pryce took out her own vibroblade, twisting it around in her hand to show it off. Hera hated the way her name sounded in the woman’s voice, it hit her with the feeling of drunkenness that twisted her insides and blurred her vision, all without a drop of alcohol. 

"Such a pointless fight." Hera did her best to focus again, but she knew she wouldn’t be back to clear thinking any time soon. She took out her vibroblade again and the two of them paced. Watching one another. "You’ve killed so many, Hera. How many of them deserved it?" 

Anger began to build rather quickly in her chest. "This has been far from pointless. And killing? Your government is the one killing innocents. Your government allows for slavery- it willingly uses slavery and tosses people away like they’re trash." 

The harsh lighting of the hall flashed on the vibroblade as Hera continued watching it twist in the woman’s hands. "The lives of locals are of little use. Most of them don’t produce enough to be worth the rations it takes to feed them." Hera knew she must be turning a darker shade by this point. 

"You’ve stripped the people of any sort of agency. You kill for disobedience. Kill for not meeting quotas-" She spoke with her hands and did her best to keep her accent at bay. 

Pryce looked at her with renewed focus. "You’ve watched too many rebel propaganda holos. They always make the Empire look worse than it is." Hera scoffed. "Propaganda? One doesn’t need propaganda. Plenty of firsthand accounts." She pointed the blade towards Pryce, not exactly in a way meant to be threatening.

This seemed to amuse her. "You’re overreacting." There were many conflicting emotions running through her. Out of every reaction she could have had- she laughed. She laughed nearly hysterically. 

"Overreacting?! Oh, I have-" she let out a breath, attempting to calm herself, "You really don’t care about others at all, do you? You don’t care how many women are sold as property. Or how many innocent Force-sensitives are murdered." 

"You don’t care about the children you orphan. The genocides." This only made Pryce smile. "People have been doing these things for thousands of years. Besides, we aren’t the only ones selling and trading tailheads. You’re meant to be used. Is that not what the Jedi is doing? Does he not want the same out of you that a slaver would?" 

Hera’s breathing quickened- she hated how quickly those few words had stabbed right into her soul. To insinuate that Kanan wanted the same thing with her that the dozens of humans that had attempted to snatch her up from the street as a teen had wanted- to say he wanted to have his way with or without consent- 

Kanan would never and the fact Pryce made her brain suspect for even a second- "Don’t **ever** talk about him like that." Pryce’s expression remained unchanged and she nodded slightly. She let Hera soak in her own anger for a moment. "You know, I noticed something today."

She walked closer to Hera and looked her over. Hera held the weapon ready. "You weren’t leading the charge. You waited for the others to take out the worst of the weaponry. That’s unlike you, General." She emphasized the last word. "Is it?" Pryce grabbed her chin and turned her head around, looking her over. 

"Get your hands off of me." Hera’s green eyes stared deeply into Pryce’s as she pushed her. She let go, pushing her back a bit as she did. "He couldn’t help himself, dear, now could he? I am actually shocked it took so long, seeing as females of your species are known for certain talents." 

The ends of both of her lekku moved to jab inwards towards her back. "Certain talents?" She spoke through her teeth. "A bonus, really. He’s used you all up. Easily replaced by a younger model once you’re all broken and scarred. That leaves you free to me, and I’m willing to wait. Force sensitives are hard to come by these days." 

"I wonder why." Hera held her breath for a few moments before letting it out slowly. "You’ve no remorse for what you’ve done? None? You don’t lie awake at night regretting taking lives pointlessly? You don’t care that you’ve destroyed your home world?" 

Pryce laughed a bit. "No. I don’t. We got what we needed out of Lothal. It wasn’t helping anyone just sitting here." Hera sighed. This was a lost cause. The woman was too far gone. "This world nourished you and you killed it." She raised an eyebrow. "It was never alive." 

"You destroyed habitats. What kind of person destroys the home of a loth-kitten? You burned all the living parts. You’ve left a shell and the citizens would be lucky to be able to even salvage this planet after you’ve gone." The stupid grin was back. "I’m not the one leaving." 

Hera held out her blade. "You aren’t going anywhere but you’re sure as hell not staying on Lothal, either." Pryce turned and swung at her with her own blade and Hera stopped the woman’s arm by grabbing her wrist. "Oh, come on, you can do better." She kicked Pryce in the abdomen as she let go of her wrist. 

She wanted to kill Pryce. She wanted her dead. And she felt nearly no guilt for wanting it. She hit her wrist comm. 

_Chop, follow this signal. Help requested._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say! I did start to get all my preorders for The Black Series though! So many Spectres,,,


	16. Found

**Kanan. Mom needs help.**

Chopper didn’t seem too worried, but the request scared Kanan. "How do you know that?" He moved his small arms in a way that mimicked Hera’s when she was angry. His chitters were fast and nearly impossible to understand. "Okay! Fine. Don’t get all hostile. I just wanted more information, Chop." 

He tried to calm the droid before turning to the others. "Zeb. Sabine. Keep an eye out for the _Ghost_ and continue to see if you can find a way to track the trajectory of those purrgil. I’ll be right back." He jogged out of the room and Sabine followed him. 

"Hey! Don’t you think you might need backup?" They were both running now. "She’s probably just gotten stuck somewhere." Sabine laughed shortly. "I have never seen her get stuck. She’s flexible" Kanan glanced over at her with a puzzled look. 

"What? Twi’leks are more... twisty? I don’t know if you’ve ever been with one, but-" Sabine stopped. "I am not sure which part of that to unpack first." 

They began to hear faint shuffling. "When we went to get the Kalikori there was this really pretty lady and-" Kanan tugged her arm to gently pull her down a different hallway. "Sorry, we can finish this conversation later. I think I hear someone this way." 

"Hear? Can’t you sense where she is?" He closed his eyes for a moment. "Not right now. There’s too much. Too much between us clouding that ability. I am too worried about her." They rounded the next corner and Kanan put out his hand to stop Sabine as he heard a familiar growl. 

_Oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck, that’s-_

"Well, look who has joined us. Your master is here, dear." Hera was holding the governor’s arms up, leaving most of herself vulnerable. They both held vibroblades, the blades even going so far as to sink into the sensitive skin on each other’s palms.

Hera bared her teeth as she did her best to push Pryce further away. Kanan ran through ideas to get this situation to end in the least harmful way possible. "What would he do if I just-" The governor quickly lifted her knee up, nearly hitting Hera in the abdomen. She stopped short. 

Hera had already let go to protect herself, unwittingly leaving herself even more vulnerable now as she waited to feel pain along her waist. Instead, she felt a tight hug around her, one that held her arms down and her body still. "What in the hells are you doing?!" 

Hera could hear the blade vibrating faintly as it got closer to her head. She tried to wiggle out of the hug. "The choice has been made, you’re far too difficult to keep alive, regardless of possible profit." She felt a sharp, sudden pain so intense all she could do was scream. 

It flooded her senses with a burn that radiated down her tchun before she lost sensation in it completely, leaving only the top portion and root in the fiery hell. She felt blood soaking into her shirt as her legs weakened.

She could barely even take in a proper breath. Everything had started to blacken along the outsides of her vision, which made the next move of Pryce’s unnecessary. She felt a firm grip on her head and everything darkened in a split second. 

********

Absolute terror flooded his bloodstream as the echo of the pained scream rang in his ears. He’d just watched as Pryce’s vibroblade ripped violently- carelessly into one of Hera’s lekku. He’d not been able to move to help, frozen in shock after being pulled from his planning. 

Moments later, Hera’s head had been forcibly shoved into the wall behind her, producing a crack that should never come from a living person. She slid down the now-bloodied metal, streaks from her cap marking through the blood. 

He couldn’t get his mouth to work- he couldn’t even form coherent thoughts. It never mattered how much he cared, how many nights he stayed up worrying about her, or how many times he risked his own life to save hers. Bad luck seemed to follow her around like an ever-so-loyal companion. 

Pryce brought the blade up once more. 

_You’re going to make a mistake. You have to push aside your feelings for a moment. Think logically. What can you do to get Hera out-_

Sabine interrupted his thoughts with a growl. "That’s it!" She stepped around him and unholstered both her blasters, tears forming in her eyes already. "See you in hell, you sadistic bitch!" She took little time before sending a bolt through the governor’s temple, splattering her with a great number of extra wounds. 

She’d been careful to hit her in a way she would fall away from Hera, but she still winced as the woman fell. 

A hard thump to the floor, the vibroblade echoing beside her moments later. Sabine ran towards Hera. Kanan was not helping her hold back tears. His gentle, shaky voice begged for any sort of response from his unconscious lover.

Sabine lost it when she got close enough, falling to her knees in front of the woman. The only visible movement in her body was the mostly-severed lek, twitching lightly as it began to die. "Hera?" She began sobbing without wasting time waiting for a response she knew wouldn’t come. 

Kanan ran over and Sabine tried to steady herself. "I’m- sorry- Kanan-" She reached for Hera’s bloodied neck and checked for a pulse. "She’s still breathing, just a bit shallow. Her heart is still beating, but Kanan, they don’t typically survive-" 

"I know." The nearly severed lek had stopped twitching. He spoke gently, one of his hands resting on one of Hera’s legs. "Hera, can you hear me?" He moved her leg carefully, barely shaking it but getting increasingly anxious as every second of non-responsive time passed. 

Tears began to silently roll down his face. "Please, please, please, Hera!" Sabine put a hand on his shoulder. "Kanan, I am upset, too, but-" 

_Upset? **Upset?!** She’s not the one- I would die to keep Hera alive- the only person in the galaxy I feel this sort of deep connection to. She isn’t just... _

He let out a long breath he didn’t even realize he was holding. His voice was shaky. "Help me stabilize and wrap this the best we can. She’s still in there. I think the wound is down enough to where her brain wouldn’t have been nicked. I think the cap protected it." 

Sabine wasn’t sure enough of twi’lek anatomy to let herself hope too much. Pryce had managed to slide the sleeve of the cap up slightly before butchering the lek. The slice was a good 3/4 of the way through the thing. Hera didn’t deserve her suffering to be prolonged if this was to be deadly, but she also deserved their best attempts to save her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Sorry?**


	17. Beloved

Kanan jumped onto the ramp of the _Ghost_ as the others continued to file out of the broken window of the Dome. "Chop, start the _Phantom_. I won’t be able to get up to it safely while holding her. We will have to land for a moment to transfer over." 

The droid wondered how Kanan’s 'I’ll be right back' had turned into a twenty plus minute absence. He hadn’t helped with the purrgil thing at all. Didn’t he care about his Jedi son? 

_**What a shitty idea, Kanan. We’re probably being followed. The second this Dome explodes from Sabine’s fun time stash the entirety of the city is going to go absolutely insane.** _

Frustration built up. He was covered in sweat and blood from carrying Hera, the Force damn near the only thing keeping him upright and her safely in his arms. He focused to calm himself before speaking. "We will stop in the fields for a minute to transfer over, with you flying the _Phantom_ from the inside of it. I don’t want you in the droid spot, okay?" 

_**I am not one to argue with mom, but she seriously could have picked a better time for a nap. She knows better.** _

"Chopper," Kanan almost didn’t want to tell him anything. He might take it out on him with that spark projector again. "Hera’s... not sleeping. Pryce-" he cleared his throat, nearly crying. "Pryce took a vibroblade to her lek. Ripped it. Sabine killed Pryce but not before this happened. I am so sorry, I did not ever mean for her to get hurt-" 

Chopper moved around behind Kanan as the ship jerked and pulled away. Hera was bleeding, not overly abnormal after a mission. Limp, but organics were occasionally. Mushy things, they were. The only thing worrisome to him was the lack of fight. 

She wasn’t complaining, bickering with Kanan, or lightly smacking him across the shoulder for picking her up and carrying her. She’d told him plenty of times not to do so due to his own injuries.

"I need the ship to get her to a medcenter." He started to cry again, unable to wipe the tears from his eyes. The cargo hold became a blurry mess as he stumbled a bit with a harsh turn. 

_Sabine must be flying now. Turning around to look at her handiwork._

Chopper seemed to stare at Hera for a long minute before flying up into the cockpit.

********

Kanan sat with his back against the cool wall of the small ship, deciding it would be more easy to keep Hera steady if he sat directly on the floor. He cradled her as Chopper programmed the computer, looking up only long enough to make sure he had put in the right coordinates. 

When he looked back down at Hera, he feared Sabine’s morbid assumptions had been right. Her skin was no longer the vibrant jade, bruising had begun to form along her neck and likely went all the way up to the now slightly cooled lek. He begged for the bit of blood it was getting to be enough to keep it alive. They just had to get to the medcenter. 

_**It’s not your fault, Kanan. She would never blame you for what has happened.** _

He hadn’t realized how much he was crying. He was shaking from trying to hold back and keep quiet enough not to disturb Hera. The droid put the ship on autopilot and rolled over. He patted his shoulder. "I was supposed to keep Pryce away from her. I couldn’t even do that and it’s going to cost her her life." He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, a few of the tears falling onto the twill of Hera’s flight suit.

_**Pryce did this. Not you. Mom loves you. You are not at fault. I promise, Kanan.** _

He cried even harder, attempting not to jostle Hera too much. "She trusted me and I let her down and if I wouldn’t- If I hadn’t- she let go of her hold on Pryce to protect the baby! Pryce got her because of me!" Kanan adjusted Hera so her arms went over his shoulders and her head rested gently on top of his soft sweater. 

The smell of the grease-covered shirt mixed with the scent of the generic soap she’d always used, causing a sharp tick of pain as better memories flooded his mind. Chopper was just staring at him. 

_**Are you seriously doing this bantha fodder? Seriously? You are blaming yourself for a reaction any organic would have had, regardless of baby storage? Anyone would have let go to protect themselves. Do you remember our talk?** _

"I have spent many hours up at night trying to forget it, but yes. I do." 

_**I asked if mom had wanted what you had done. What did you respond?** _

Kanan tried not to think about his current situation and how weird it was. "I asked you what the fuck you meant by that, and that yes, I would have never touched her in any way that she didn’t want and approve of, but the outcome was not on purpose." 

Chopper chittered a short agreement and made sure Kanan was paying full attention by carefully jabbing his arm under where Hera was laying.

**_When I asked her about it, she told me that she loves you. That anything you are a part of cannot be bad. That the Force must want this to happen, because it protected her during the torture and crash and fight with Rukh._ **

Kanan hugged Hera a bit tighter for a moment. Chopper grabbed one of Kanan’s hands lightly and held it as he held her. He continued chittering away. 

**_She is excited about this because it is the two of you, made into one. So, if she let go like you say she did, it was out of nothing but love. The intent was not to hurt you._ **

Kanan’s crying softened. "Did you seriously ask Hera why she slept with me?" He ran a hand softly over her back to soothe himself when Chopper let go. 

_**No, dumbass. I asked her why she fucks you. She sleeps with you because you are a warm being and the Ghost is cold to save on fuel. Twi’leks have a higher body temperature to maintain than humans.** _

Kanan stared forward at the opposite wall. "Chop, I don’t-"

_**Nope. No blaming yourself. Nobody but Pryce caused mom to get these injuries today. If the Mandalorian hadn’t’ve killed her, I would have gone back into that dome regardless of the explosives and fucking sliced that bitch to pieces myself. Nobody fucks with mom. I’ll kick everyone’s asses.** _

He motioned with his manipulator arms, using them in the way a humanoid would to indicate exactly what he would’ve done to Pryce had he been given the opportunity. Kanan couldn’t help but let out a small laugh, one still mostly mixed with a sob. "She’s lucky to have such a caring, murderous droid like you on her side." 

**_Speaking of on her side, mom has your lightsaber. Wrapped into her belt. I suggest removing it before handing her over to people who aren’t Jedi. They’ll turn you over and you are not leaving me with a screaming, tiny organic._ **

Kanan carefully adjusted Hera to find the saber, shocked he hadn’t noticed it before. "I don’t think they’ll turn anyone in, they’re medics, you little shit. But you’re right regardless. The lightsaber needs to be taken off her belt. It is a weapon and those are not particularly welcome in a medcenter." 

Where in the galaxy had she found it? And how had she gotten it so twisted in that belt? She wasn’t going to be happy with Kanan’s next move. "Slice the belt, Chop." The droid began to explain why it was a terrible idea. "Do it. She’ll understand." Chopper sighed and carefully cut the belt to free the weapon. 

"Keep that safe. Thank you, thank you for talking to me. It is okay for you to go back to flying if you want." He adjusted Hera a bit as Chopper went back to the controls. Kanan wanted nothing more than for her to wake up and lightly smack him for worrying. 

He wanted to know she was still in there. He had so much more he had wanted to tell her. So many more memories to make. Kisses to give. Meals to share. "Hera, hey." He cleared his throat. He felt stupid but continued to talk. 

"I don’t know if you can hear and understand me, Hera, but I need to do this anyway. Not- not that you are dying." He placed a gentle kiss on the side of her cap and held back a sob, the reflections dancing across the transparisteel reminding him of the thousands of evenings spent next to her on supply runs and missions. 

"You know I love you. I love you for so, so many reasons. I love how driven you are, the way your eyes light up at important intel, the sound of your voice echoing down the halls when you think nobody is listening." Hera didn’t respond in any way.

"I love how hardheaded you are, how you can knock someone out cold with a single well-placed punch." He cleared his throat. Chopper chittered something he couldn’t comprehend. 

"You’re always looking out for everyone else- risking your own safety for others. Its admirable, and I understand why you do it. But it hurts. You know this because I have done the same to you." He held her a bit tighter, wanting to feel her heart beating. 

It was, and it was shockingly strong. Whatever was causing the lack of consciousness was not blood loss, which gave him some hope. A few tears had fallen onto the back of Hera’s bloodied outfit. "I couldn’t imagine a better best friend, partner, lover, or mother." 

"I need you to know just how much all of it means to me. The nights you’ve stayed up to keep me calm. The conversations over terrible food in the middle of nowhere." He could barely see or breathe. More chitters. 

_**You’re worrying me. Is mom offline? I don’t know what I would do if she stopped working forever.** _

"Chop, I-" he closed his eyes and a few more tears fell onto Hera. "All we can do is get her somewhere as soon as we can. I am trying my best to keep her alive. I promise, buddy." This only served to make the droid genuinely upset. He began low, mournful beeps and chitters.

Stories, maybe? No, one story. One from over two decades prior. "I know. She saved me, too. She cares deeply about us all." He placed another light kiss on her head, hoping it wouldn’t be the last. "I don’t know how I got so lucky. Gods. For someone I love to want to keep our child in the middle of all of this, with all the extra complications." 

"You’re absolutely amazing and I hope both of you survive this- but regardless- know I love you. I love you and I am so sorry-" He tried to hold back a sob. "I am sorry. She must’ve slipped by when I was distracted." 

"An explanation, not an excuse. There is no excuse for what occurred." He felt her hand pull on the back of his sweater lightly, holding it for a moment. She wanted his attention. She had all of it already. "Kanan." It was stuttered and weak. "I-" she took in a shaky breath and he felt her hand tighten on his back. 

"Kriff, that’s a lot of pain." He tried to focus on her enough to ease some of it, but it wasn’t seeming to do much. She spoke again, a whisper compared to her normal volume. "I love you, too." It was barely comprehensible and he shuttered at the way her functioning lek fell back onto his arm. 

He hadn’t felt her move it in the first place, and the thought of her attempting to speak with them only to realize she couldn’t anymore broke his heart. An integral part of Hera had been destroyed. He knew how important they were to twi’leks, both physically and culturally. 

"And trust me, you’re the only person whose child I would have. Fuck everyone else. But not literally." Her short nails dug into his sweater. Her breathing was labored. "Someone got one of my lekku, didn’t they? If someone cut off a lek..." Kanan held back his tears. "It will be okay. This- this can be fixed, Hera." 

It took a minute for a response. "I’m sorry, love. I kriffed up." Her hand twisted around in the sweater. "You didn’t do anything." Hera let out a weak laugh that sounded more like a sob. "I can’t seem to control my legs, I cannot feel my tchun-" 

She tried to control her breathing. "You know better than to think I will make it. Waste of fuel." Pain struck his chest. "But hells, what an interesting way to go out. Covered in blood, if the sensation on my neck is any indication, down one lek, pregnant with a human’s child, and cradled in a Jedi’s arms." 

He felt strong anger for the first time in years. Pryce had taken something so sacred and used it against her. "Not bad. Not bad, Hera." She spoke to herself in a way meant to demean. He felt tears soaking into his sweater on his shoulder. "I’m terrified, Kanan. Don’t let go."

"Wouldn’t dream of it, Hera." Her breathing became more unsteady for a few moments before Kanan felt her hand release slowly from his sweater. Her body was completely limp again. She wasn’t dead. The unconsciousness wasn’t caused by blood loss. Her brain might have some damage, but she remembered him. 

She was likely blacking out from the sheer amount of pain. All of those nerves exposed, the torn sensitive skin sticking to the makeshift wrap. He wasn’t sure how Pryce could have done such a thing to someone as caring as her. 

How someone could have done anything that terrible woman had done, truthfully. Pryce had intended this blow to be deadly. She’d done her best to make it slow and painful. He’d seen it before, someone incapacitating another using their lekku. He’d seen a twi’lek die on the dirt beside him after stumbling upon a failed drug deal. 

********

He watched as the newly stitched-up Hera floated in a brightly-lit bacta tank. They’d spent hours reconnecting nerves, nerves that they didn’t know for sure would ever regain any function. It would take weeks to even see if she’d get sensation back in the lek, possibly months to see if it got back any sort of motor function. 

She’d gotten a blood transfusion, an x-ray done ever so carefully, and a full look over for possible trauma to her abdomen. 

She was going to be okay. She was stable. Their baby was stable. She would wake up in a few days or so, hopefully. He didn’t want her to be unconscious for long enough that she woke up to a noticeably different body. It would make her even more anxious than she was. 

She was barely even showing. Someone not around her often wouldn’t notice the slight bump or acknowledge it as anything. She could get away with all her duties as General for a while longer before Mon or anyone attempted to ground her. 

_They may attempt. Attempt. They’re stupid if they think she’ll listen. The second she realizes Ezra is missing, she will be shoving everyone out of the way to find him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am evil, but not that evil. Hera is my favorite. She stays.


	18. Needed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been a while. My bad.

"Good morning, Hera." He spoke softly, only loud enough for her to be able to hear. It wasn’t anywhere near morning. Hells, it was nearly halfway through the night, but they’d eased her off the stronger medications. She would likely respond. 

He placed a hand on the tank. "Hera?" 

She stirred a bit, the array of monitors she was wired to began to beep faster. "It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s only me." Kanan’s words did not slow down the panic in the slightest. She was moving near violently, getting caught on the restraints. 

_She’s not getting caught. She’s trying to get out of them. Oh, gods-_

"Hera, can you focus on my voice? Just for a minute?" She wasn’t registering the voice as one that belonged to family. What was meant for extra stabilization to protect her lek might end up causing the further damage of it. The woman tugged on the restraints blindly, in enough of a panic to nearly make Kanan cry. 

This wasn’t working. He wanted to stick his arm in the tank and hold one of her hands. Rub his thumb along her palm in the way he always did. In a way that would tell her she was safe. She was safe, Kanan was here. Nobody would dare harm her ever again. 

_A verbal handshake? Wait. Kanan, literally just tell her who you are._

"Freykaa, breathe. It’s Kanan. Only Kanan." The monitors calmed slightly, but not anywhere close to what had been her resting rate of anything. "You are in a bacta tank on Lothal. Understand?" 

She went to nod, taking in a sharp breath loudly enough Kanan could hear it. "Don’t move your head!" He winced, "Thumbs up or down, got it?" She gave a thumbs up. "Do you remember what happened?" She shook her hand side to side, already switching the rules. "Do you want to know?" 

A pause. She shook her hand again before gesturing towards her abdomen. "You want to know about the baby?" A thumbs up. This was going to be the easiest thing to explain, and the only thing not terrible. "Still small enough it had some cushioning, and the trauma you endured did not seem to have any lasting negative effects on it." 

She continued to relax. "Do you want to know what happened to you?" A thumbs up. "Your left lek was nearly completely severed. You had major surgery to repair the nerves, and in about a standard month, they will begin to grow again. You will likely never regain full control over it, but you might regain a decent amount of feeling." 

She gestured for him to continue. "You are in the tank in that way to keep your neck straight and your lekku safe. You had a concussion and major bruising, but your hard head maintained its integrity despite being slammed into a hard, unforgiving wall." 

"You..." He sighed. He felt her anxiety spike again, along with hearing the machines speed up. "You can’t walk." He cleared his throat. "May only be a few days, or weeks, but possibly longer. Your brain is a bit appalled at the way the lek was treated, considering how close it was to your brain." 

_So fucking close._

A thumbs up, even if it was an upset one. "And I did not mean for this to happen, but word of your injuries got back to Yavin. Which then spread further. Someone told your father about the injuries. He called. I told him you were okay, but he didn’t exactly trust that. He might show up." More agitation. She balled up a fist. 

Kanan let her relax for a minute. She started to sign actual letters. Each of the crew member’s names, then the letters o and k. "You want to know about our family unit?" A thumbs up. "Zeb took Kallus on a small trip. They’ll be back soon. Your wonderfully kind Chopper has been visiting you, he is recharging on the _Ghost_ currently." 

"I am okay, obviously. Sabine is working on an art project, beyond shocking, I know." He got antsy. She signed again. He didn’t want to do it. He did not want to tell her. She was too good at being able to tell when he was lying. Too stubborn to let this go. She signed his name again, more aggravated. 

Ezra. Ezra. He started to tear up. "Hera, I am sorry. He’s... missing. Alive. But not anywhere near Lothal. I am so sorry-" She hit the tank with the bottom of her palm, careful not to direct it towards Kanan. She then started to attempt to free herself from the restraints once more. 

"Go. Ezra. Go." She’d paused her frantic tugging to sign. He nearly laughed. "Hera Syndulla, you are out of your mind if you think I am going to leave you right now." She hit the tank again. "I promise we will find him. We will bring him home. I love him, I know you love him, hells, even Chopper has been carrying on with his sad warbles." 

"But it is not the right time yet." She was still incredibly upset, but she was also having trouble staying awake. "I think I need to let you rest. I am going to go get cleaned up. Chop will be here in a minute. Is that okay?" Thumbs up. "I love you. I will be back later."

********

She waited about a half hour, making sure he was gone before pulling on the restraints again. Ezra was missing. Missing, surely waiting for her to find him and bring him home. The thought of him being terrified and alone somewhere made her sick. 

A sudden memory made her stop for a moment. Pryce. Pryce, the horrid woman, brought up something she’d not thought of regarding Kanan in nearly a decade. 

Used up. Scarred up. What if he does leave for someone not so beat up? For someone without all this baggage? 

She tried to push that thought aside. Ezra. She had to help Ezra and she had to go now. The restraints finally came off one by one using small buckles she’d not felt during her previous attempts to free herself. Next, she had to somehow get herself to the ledge without proper control of her legs. 

She began to carefully pull herself up using the rope on the restraints. Once near the top, she could switch to not strain herself. It felt like tiny needles were driving into her palms- the long stay in the tank had caused her normally calloused hands to become less protected. 

_Well, repairing the Ghost is going to suck for a while._

She carefully placed her feet into parts of the restraints so she could grab onto the top edge of the tank. She realized she wasn’t getting in full breaths. 

_Kanan deserves better than this. I am an absolute mess. Ezra is gone and Kanan surely will be soon._

The nearly complete ring around her lek began to sting horribly as the bacta rolled off of it. She shakily adjusted until she was able to sit around the upper lip of the tank. She was not going to be able to lower herself down. At this point, though, all she wanted was air. It felt like someone had taken all of it from the room. 

She started to panic. Maybe someone _had_ removed the air. Maybe they were going to kill her. The restraints were to keep her from putting up a fight. The protection aspect was a lie. She was too much of a liability to keep around. 

She made the choice to toss herself over the side of the tank, having already forgotten about her lack of motor control. She was sobbing at this point. Instead of hitting the floor, she hit a mattress. She’d barely fallen at all. All she could hear was the blood rushing through her head. 

She wasn’t sure if she had been screaming or if the medical droids had already been planning on coming into her room. "I have to go! I cannot breathe! Please!" The response was unintelligible. 

She went to get out of the bed and began to fall before being caught by one of the droids. "You need to take a deep breath, miss." Oh, finally some real words. Her own response was stuttered terribly. "I can’t breathe! I need to breathe! You are suffocating me!"

The light from the hallway blurred and smeared in her vision. "You are killing me! Let me out of here! You’re sucking all the- all the air out!" Another medical droid came in with an array of supplies, none of them particularly appealing to Hera. They laid her back down safely on the bed. 

One of them began speaking again, carefully turning her arm over. Cold. Cold, the smell of alcohol burned her nose. More talking. So much talking. Then, a bit of pain, a cold liquid trickling into her arm. Another droid placed a syringe of milky liquid into the contraption and slowly emptied it into the line. 

_They’re going to kill me._

********

The world was a bit blurry, but she’d recognize his outline anywhere. "Its Kanan! I should have known that woman was a liar." He walked closer to her and ran a hand over her cheek. "Hello, beautiful. Why aren’t you in the tank?" She reached up for him and he leaned down. She ran her hand through his hair, slowly getting longer. 

"Hair. Very soft." She tugged on his arm in an attempt to get him to understand that she wanted to be held. "Are you sure you want me that close?" Hera hummed a positive response. He slipped off his outer layer and his shoes and gently got into the small bed beside her. 

_He’ll leave. He’ll leave. Give him something he wants-_

"Hey..." She spoke in singsong. She had a recognizable look on her face. She snuggled in closer to him and kissed his cheek. He raised an eyebrow and looked over at the IV solution before holding a hand under her chin and turning her head gently. Her eyes were glossy. 

She made no effort to fight against his hand. "What in the hells is being pumped into your body right now?" It was whispered, not even really a question for Hera. She answered anyway. "Not the thing I want." He sighed as he covered part of his face. "Freykaa, Hera." 

He hated how he reacted to her voice regardless of her current level of self control. She tugged on his hand to see if he was blushing. "See? You want it, too!" She poked his chest to punctuate. This was terrible, something he never thought he would say regarding this situation and Hera. 

"You’re drugged. You know I would not use you. It is not at all safe for you right now." He ran his hand down the side of her face and looked into her eyes. "How not? You’ve already knocked me up." Her pupils were so incredibly dilated. 

"Hera, you’ve got a concussion. And just got stitches. And your head is literally covered in bruising." She laughed lightly. "That means nothing! It’s all fine." She snuggled up against him again, running a hand slowly down his torso. 

He gently grabbed her wrist and moved her hand back up to his shoulder. "No. What did they do to you? You’re out of it." Kanan looked around to see if they had it written on her board what they’d given her. "I am not!" She smiled, it quickly dissolving into laughter. 

"Nah, you definitely are and you are definitely not in the mood to sleep with me, I have known you for over a decade. The Force moves around you differently with each emotion. What happened?" She kept laughing. "I jumped out of the tank and I was suffocating but they kept telling me I wasn’t suffocating and I had to leave, Kanan. I had to get out of here but they wouldn’t let me." 


	19. Oblivious

Despite her laughter typically being contagious, he did not find this funny in the slightest. He was pissed that they had drugged her up. She was likely terrified enough before they came at her with needles. She didn’t need any more stress, and causing her to think about her decently recent torture would definitely be considered stress causing. 

Maybe she could be calmed a bit by further explaining things. "Hera, you’re in here because you were seriously injured. I would never leave you somewhere to be harmed." She thought through his words. His tone. Kanan sounded... upset? Offended? She didn’t want that, she was trying to make herself liked.

"I’m sorry." He let out a small laugh at her seemingly random apology, confusing Hera. "You haven’t done anything wrong. I am just worried about you. You’ve had quite the few months and-"

He sighed and tugged her closer instinctively, despite her already being against his side. She yelped, taken off guard. "Oh, gods- sorry, I wasn’t thinking." He found and held her hand that was draped over him, massaging it for a moment before moving to fix her gown. Hera apologized again.

"I am sorry." He gently moved the fabric back to where she was more covered, at least as covered as she had been before he moved her. "Hera, I was the one that aggressively pulled you over. You haven’t done anything wrong. I promise." She started crying quietly. 

Kanan nearly knocked her off his chest trying to sit fully up to check her. He looked over the injuries, specifically the lek, making sure no stitches had been pulled. "What did I hurt? Gods, I am so stupid. I wasn’t thinking- I do not want them to put you under again and it would be my fault." She now had her head in his lap, tear-filled vision looking ahead at the signs on the wall. 

She cried a bit stronger, shaking from trying to hold it all in. "They numbed mostly everything, I have no feeling in most of the injury areas. I am sorry for scaring you. It is okay if you wanted to leave. I would understand." She grabbed at the sheets in front of her. 

She frustratedly tugged at them and twisted them to get pressure on her hand. Kanan sat in the relative silence for a moment, attempting to understand what she meant. She knew they had no leads on Ezra. He wasn’t leaving Hera to carelessly search. 

He could go once Sabine had found out more than the basics. The purrgil were turning out to be far more difficult to track than a ship. They didn’t care for approved hyperspace lanes nor did they have signatures that would ping off of sensors. She wasn’t sure how long they could go without needing more clouzon-36. 

"Freykaa, there really are no leads on Ezra. Did you mean you want me to leave you alone?" She whispered through her tears that she didn’t. "Then why would I?" By now, she was fully sobbing. "Do you want me to hold you?" 

"Yeah. Yes, please." She crawled into his lap and he cradled her, letting her cry into his shoulder. "Do you want to talk about what is bothering you? It’s okay if it is the same things it has been. It might still help to talk about it." 

She calmed herself enough to talk a bit more clearly. "I’m not even a Twi’lek anymore, and I am all scarred up, and I am getting old, and I got knocked up, and nobody wants that." He hugged her against him, her arms draped around his neck, resting on his shoulders. She returned to nearly fully crying. 

"You meant me leaving-leaving. Now, why would I do that?" She sniffled. "Lek?" He laughed. "Even if you only had one lek, that wouldn’t change anything for me. But you still have two full lekku. I promise." He touched her back and traced where the numb lek was laying. "See?" 

"That is what is against your upper back." She relaxed slightly. "Scars, the way they form raised areas and discolored lines." He ran over the mostly faded scar on his face from Maul. "Stories. Things we made it through. Survived." She rubbed a bit of his sweater in between her fingers. 

"Old?" He rocked her a bit. "I am older." She sniffled a few times. "Pregnant?" He sighed. "My doing, Hera. Why the hells would I leave you over that? That is amazing. You have no idea how much I love you. I-" 

He teared up, overwhelmed suddenly. "Kanan, I am sorry I hid my feelings for you." She kissed the side of his head and ran her fingers through the slightly spiky short hair. She didn’t want to see him so upset. "You didn’t hide them, Hera. You have a different way of showing love." 

"What?" He leaned slightly away to kiss her in return before explaining. "Your way isn’t the most obvious to others, but it is there and it is beautiful. Your banter, the little touches, the nicknames, the comm calls, the late-night conversations." She snuggled back into his neck to feel the vibrations as he spoke. 

"Just because you didn’t say the exact words doesn’t mean I didn’t know and feel that you loved me. You’re terrified of losing people you love. You’ve told me the ways in which you’ve lost close friends and family members in such violent ways, and it’s normal to want to protect the ones you’ve still got by keeping them a bit at a distance. Or, by thinking you are keeping them at a distance, in this case." 

"Those deaths aren’t your fault, just like the death of my Master isn’t mine. You’re not the one that pulled the trigger, the one that set off the detonators, or shot down their ships. Anything you’ve done? It has been to protect innocents." Hera wanted to cry even harder, but she was able to hold back. 

"I shouldn’t have been in that hallway alone with Pryce. She holds a grudge. I put us further in danger." He’d forgotten she wouldn’t have known how that fight ended. "Pryce is dead. She was killed after she hurt you." He could feel her relax almost instantly. "Thank you, Kanan." 

"Sabine killed her, actually." Hera hummed. "I guess I owe her one." He smiled and hugged her tight again. "I don’t know, she might have paid you for the chance to do that. It makes the top five 'pissed-off Sabine moments', for sure." 

"Always a good feeling for her to get in some target practice. What did she get her with?" She could feel him softly laughing again. "There you are, Hera’s morbid curiosity. Don’t get too excited. She used her normal blasters." She couldn’t let Sabine know, but she was beyond happy that Pryce was dead.

Sabine may take that compliment as free reign. Would that change much at this point? Not likely. They were killing more people now, anyway. The war was spreading. Growing. People wanted her and her family dead and Sabine was simply doing what it took to protect her family. "Can Sabine visit me?" 

"Of course. She is currently waiting for your father, though." Hera tensed up again. "Is he really going to show up? That’s... not the greatest idea at the moment." Kanan rocked her gently again and sighed. "I know he can be a bit much, but I think he just wants to make sure you and the baby are okay in person." 

"Doubtful. He doesn’t know." He sighed. "Hera, you do know that he will eventually notice an entire baby, right? I know the bump is super small at the moment but he may even notice now if you put your normal clothing on." She tapped his back, playing a little song in her head. "I mean he doesn’t know anything." She emphasized the last word. 

"What do you mean by 'anything'?" She hummed, stalling. "I mean, maybe for the past decade I have been angrily pushing back on his whole "don’t let a human man live on my ship" bantha fodder by telling him again and again you are a strict Jedi." Kanan sat in silence while he thought it over. 

"We’ve seen him a few times over the decade, though. How could he not have noticed? I have been with you at least somewhat romantically for eight of those years, Hera." 

"You’re right." She sighed and snuggled into his shoulder more. "Those first couple years weren’t very romantic." 

"Hera. This is going to be a bit of an issue." She shook her head slightly against him. "Nah." Kanan sighed. "So me helping you to the refresher and helping you into the shower and washing around the injury on your lek isn’t suspicious?" 

"Nope. You’re just the best colleague ever. How would he know that last part, anyway?" 

"The part where I stay in the refresher while you are in the shower. The fact that I simply continue to help you to the refresher when you need me to." 

"How long is he going to stay? Gods. Hopefully not long. Ezra is still out there. We can’t mess around in this medcenter forever." He rolled his eyes. "Can you even stand?" She hummed in the affirmative. "Without falling?" She was quiet. "For a bit. My legs are just shaky and give out sometimes."

"Ah," he answered, sarcastically, "Perfect for combat." Hera sighed. "If I were in even slightly better shape, I would kick your ass for the tone you are using." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am legit still writing on this every single day I just keep changing shit jfhshfjdb


	20. Soft

He held a hand to his chest in mock indignation, despite the fact she couldn’t see it from her angle. "You would harm me? Hera Syndulla. So soon after making this whole thing official? Have you forgotten our past already?" He could feel her smile against his neck. 

"I forget nothing, Kanan Jarrus." The whisper sent tingles down his spine. She turned his head to the side gently to look at him. He smiled at the familiar expression on her face. "Example: You asked within the first day if you could sleep with me." 

She leaned in and waited for him. "I asked if you wanted my company!" She scoffed. "Yeah, okay. I am sure your intentions were pure. You wanted to cook me a nice meal. Do you want a kiss or not?" She ran her thumb over one of his cheeks. "Always, but-" He relaxed into the not-so-sudden sudden kiss. 

Hera felt like she was going to melt right into him. She wanted to feel every bit of Kanan that she could. Re-memorize his body. She ran her hand over his still-healing skin, careful to note any flinch. The patches of pink skin were tight and rather thin feeling compared to the dark tan skin she was used to. 

Her hands continued to explore. She missed being able to twist locks of his hair around her fingers. She pulled away for a moment. "You are growing this back out, right?" She fluffed up his hair in the back. "Still don’t like it?" He’d cut it again, but not for the look. His burns had been extensive. After that night, he’d been left with a mix of charred spots and patches of burnt hair. 

"I am just happy you survived, love. You, of course, don’t have to grow it out again if you would rather not. I‘ll get used to it in time." He smiled. "Don’t worry. I am growing it back out. I need something to fidget with, you need something to run your hands through, and babies love to play with anything they can get their hands on." 

This entire _baby_ thing was still taking a while to sink in. Besides asking if it was okay a few times, she’d attempted to ignore the situation. Any discomfort and pain was from something else. The throwing up was all of those medications from injuries. Motion sickness was just from a disorienting flight. 

She pushed her fear to the side. "They sure do. You’d let a baby mess up your hair? Your flawless hair?" She raised an eyebrow. "Not other babies. Just this one." She smiled before burying her head back into his shoulder. "Quit making me feel emotions."

He laughed. "Only if you promise the same." She patted his shoulder without moving her head. "I am flattered that I make you feel things." She sighed and held her breath for a few moments. "Are you okay?" 

She hummed in response. "Just a bit nauseous." She readjusted on his lap. "And tired already. Now, if you are really sure you aren’t leaving, care for a nap?" 

"With you? Always." She crawled out of his lap and let him lay down completely before curling up against him. He fixed the thin sheet and held her close, anxiety still radiating from her despite his best efforts to distract her. 

********

He slept for a bit, but found himself wide awake rather quickly. He could feel the pain and discomfort of the person laying against him, and he knew she had gotten sick a couple of times during his nap. He carefully reached for his datapad and messaged Sabine. 

-Has Cham showed up yet?   
_-No, but Chop says he should be here soon. How is Hera?_   
-She’s... decent. In pain. A bit sick. Listen, you have to tell the others this, too. Not around Cham.   
_-Oh? Drama?_   
-No! He just doesn’t know about Hera and I being involved, so he certainly does not know about the baby. So don’t bring it up.   
_-What a classic Hera move. Telling people just what they need to know and nothing more._   
-Just promise me you’ll keep it secret and tell the others to do so as well. 

He was getting pointlessly agitated. He needed more rest. Everything was so much. Hera had a long list of things she needed at the moment and she hadn’t requested any of them. She needed to eat. Maybe walk around a bit to prevent clots, even if he had to support her. The dressing around her lek needed changed, too. 

_\- I promise._   
\- Thank you. Any updates on Ezra?   
\- _I have found many possible paths. Right now, the one I am most confident about is one that we’d pass Lira San on. So, not great._   
\- Why isn’t that great? You’ve gotten closer to finding him! That is incredible!   
\- _It is wild space, Kanan. If he even survived that, chances are we won’t._  
\- I trust the _Ghost_ and her captain to safely navigate wild space. She’s done so before.   
_\- Hera is going on this mission? Are you crazy?!_   


A valid question. A stupid one, but a valid one. 

\- If we are going to launch ourselves into wild space around black holes and star clusters, you know her well enough to know she will not let anyone but her pilot that ship.   
\- Nor will she let any of us go into danger alone like that. And alone doesn’t mean without others. It means without her.   
_-That is a terrible idea! Do you know how severe lek injuries can be? How dangerous it is for her to be without close medical care in case of infection or other emergencies?_   
\- I do. But this isn’t my choice to make, Sabine. And we would be much more likely to survive out there with a pilot as skilled as she is. 

Sabine stopped answering. Cham was likely there. Hera woke slightly and violently grabbed forward, grabbing onto anything she could, pulling the thin bedsheet from the corners easily. "Woah! Hey. Hey. You’re okay." She stared forward from her spot. "Get your hands off of me." It was most certainly a command. 

He did as asked and let go of the way he’d been holding her for the past few hours. She wasn’t actually here, it seemed. "Can you tell me what your name is?" This only served to agitate her. "You damn well already know my name. Hera Syndulla." 

She was starting to sound more aggressive. "And do you know who I am?" This took her a bit longer. Nobody was touching her. There were no binders around her wrists. The voice didn’t match up with the one she had heard a minute prior. She started to tear up, now fully awake. "Holy shit- I didn’t mean to say those things to you- did I hurt you?" 

He scoffed. "You think I can’t handle a few aggressive words? No. You didn’t hurt me. You weren’t actually talking to me, I know that." He kissed the top of her wrapped head. "I didn’t punch you?" He thought for a moment. "No... do you need to talk about it?" She cleared her throat. "No. It’s okay. Sorry I woke you up." 

"You didn’t hurt me or wake me up. I was playing on the datapad. I promise. Do you want me to run and get you some food?" She shook her head carefully. "Stay." 

********

"I’m doing my best to track him. We want him home." Cham nodded and followed Sabine through the halls of the med center. "I hope you are able to bring him home, and soon. I can’t imagine how worried all of you must be." She laughed quietly. "Well, none of us are having a great time, that’s for sure." 

Sabine opened the door quietly, letting Hera’s father into the mostly-darkened room. She followed behind and smiled at the two curled up on the bed. "Ah, there they are. The galaxy’s two most not romantically involved people." Sabine felt her face flush at his joke. How much did he know? 

Cham walked over closer to see Hera. The monitors weren’t enough to calm his worries. He wanted to see she was breathing and see the lek had been repaired. He wasn’t losing another family member. Her head rested on Kanan’s chest, the injured lek on the side she wasn’t laying on. 

It was wrapped, and he wondered just how close they’d been able to match up the markings. He started to tear up. "I promise she is okay, sir." He cleared his throat. "Thank you. Thank you for saving her." She looked like Tislera. Almost overwhelmingly so. The color was only a slightly bit different. 

"It was a joint effort. Sabine, Ezra, Zeb, even Chopper helped." He watched as she stirred a bit, only to be calmed by a gentle hand on her back and a few whispered words. Kanan reminding her she was safe. Telling her he was still there and that he always would be. 

She fell completely back asleep. Cham then thought for a second, looking at Kanan. His skin was certainly scarred in more places. His eyes were no longer cloudy. "Can you see now? How? Why didn’t Hera tell me? That’s a huge deal, isn’t it?" He gestured for him to calm a bit. 

He wasn’t going to tell him any of what happened that night. Definitely not when Hera was around. "New type of surgery. I don’t know how long it’ll last, so I didn’t think to tell many people."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is taking me longer because now I am to the point where I am, essentially, writing completely from scratch each chapter and no longer from my detailed outline.


	21. Blush

"And you cut your hair! Did you get tired of the old look?" Kanan laughed uncomfortably. "Not exactly. And I know for a fact your daughter is not a fan of the short hair, so I think I will be growing it back out." He could see Cham hesitating, obviously wanting to lay a comforting hand on Hera. He rested it on the bed beside her, instead.

It rested close to her undamaged lek that stretched out behind her, which Cham now noticed was faintly blushed. Odd for someone who was at rest. The damaged lek was also blushed, but it was more difficult to tell through the bruising and swelling. He tried not to think about how bad it must look under the wrap. 

He tried not to think about why there was so much of the wrapping in the first place. The entire back of her head was wrapped in a way obviously meant to do more than stabilize the lek. The injuries were worse than he had been made aware of. "Can..." He stopped as a bit of a memory overlapped with the present. 

Tislera. He hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye. She’d been killed around Hera’s age, gone before he even knew she’d been hurt. His eyes started to water. He could lose his daughter the same way if she wasn’t more careful with her missions. Hera reminded him of Tislera an absolutely overwhelming amount, more now than ever.

Tislera’s lekku blushed on many occasions. It was easier to see on a person whose skin tone you knew well, as the blush wasn’t strong enough to be noticed otherwise. It tended to happen after running from battle droids after a skirmish, or after running from a gutkurr they’d stumbled across. 

It happened after compliments. It happened after arguments. It happened a lot, but always with reason. Hormones tended to be the only reason they’d stay blushed for any amount of time. It crushed his heart to see Hera’s blushed even during her likely drug-induced nap. 

Was she stressed enough for this to happen? He wasn’t completely caught up with the rebellion or her life in general. What all was going on? "Can you tell me what happened? Would she be okay with me knowing anything?" Kanan was silent for a moment before answering in the whispers they’d been using since Cham had arrived. 

"Well, her tchun was nearly severed, which you know. She had a couple surgeries to repair the nerves. They went decently for the most part. They have been giving her ample amounts of pain medications." Sabine smiled behind Cham. "Oh, so she’s back to being brutally honest? Entertainment." He jumped a bit, having forgotten she was standing so close. 

Kanan raised an eyebrow. "It isn’t- It isn’t a drug like that. She’s out of it but not without a bit of a filter." Cham nodded. "Why is her entire head wrapped?" Kanan debated whether or not to tell him. He felt incredibly guilty for letting the fight go on long enough for it to occur. Embarrassment at how his body had been frozen when she needed him.

"The other person in the fight... after the lek thing, her head hit the wall. She has a concussion and major bruising." Kanan was having problems holding back his emotions. Cham glanced down at her lekku again. "I do promise she had the best surgery available, sir. I know how much her lekku mean to her, and how much they mean to all people who have them." Cham smiled awkwardly. 

He had no doubt that the Jedi had assured that Hera had been given the best care. He’d seen the man’s reactions around her the few times they’d met. He respected her. She wasn’t a toy to him and his daughter genuinely trusted this man. He was obviously more than a crew mate, despite Hera’s efforts to hide that fact. 

He seemed to be far more than even a good friend, if Cham was being honest. He was nearly positive Hera had been with the Jedi in some sort of romantic way starting long before he and his daughter had begun speaking again. 

His hypothesis seemed to be further proven in later meetings, missions her and her crew had helped him with. Hera freely put her life in Kanan’s hands, seemingly without even thinking about it. They completed plans in tandem despite never discussing them verbally. They could look at one another and just know.

She read him as clearly as if he was signing, despite his lack of lekku. "Sir? Are you feeling okay?" Kanan went to gently move to get a more clear view of Cham, making sure Hera did not wake. "I am fine. Thank you."

He had expected to see Kanan by her side. He had not been expecting the perpetually blushed lekku. He began to realize these two things were likely connected.

_Tislera’s lekku stayed like that-_

The galaxy suddenly felt overwhelming. It all crashed down on him at once. It was a ridiculous assumption to make, but it was the assumption that made the most sense. He needed air. "I will be back in a while. Excuse me." 

He quickly moved away from the bed. "Sir, are you positive you are okay?" He nodded. "I’m fine, Kanan. And really, you can just call me Cham." He walked out into the hall and closed the door gently behind him. "Sabine, how can I let him know she really is going to be okay? She’s sleeping a lot because her body is using up so much energy. She’s not dying." 

He scratched beside one of her wrapped lekku carefully, listening for the content sound she occasionally made. "See? She’s okay!" Sabine stared at Kanan, wide-eyed. It was an odd sound, akin to a happy Loth-cat. Not a noise she’d ever heard from Hera. "Twi’leks can purr?!" He shook his head. "No. That’s a happy sigh." Sabine looked at Hera, resting on his chest. 

"Kanan, that is a purr." He shook his head gently. "You must not be around Loth-cats or tookas much, Sabine." He hugged Hera a bit closer as she remained asleep. "Kanan." She sighed and wiped her hand across her face. 

********

The brightly lit parking lot of speeders was surprisingly empty of people. Which was fine, preferred, actually. Everything needed to stop for a minute. He never expected Hera to have children and it was enough of a shock when he saw her for the first time in years and she had taken in so many people. 

She’d wanted off of Ryloth so badly, he’d assumed she wanted nothing but independence. It hurt to know that wasn’t exactly the reasoning behind her move.

_She’d wanted a family that would support her._

She’d gotten just that. What started as anger towards her for hiding such a big thing from him turned to guilt. He hadn’t been there for nearly half of her life at this point. What had he expected? He didn’t even know for sure if she was married. Or dating. He had only his assumptions about this loved one he once knew so well. 

He felt a slight breeze and heard footsteps behind him. "Sir- Cham. Are you absolutely sure you are okay? I know you are upset and anxious, it is understandable. I was terrified we were going to lose her." Kanan cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "But we didn’t. She’s incredibly resilient." 

Cham remained facing away. He wanted absolutely no reason to get overly emotional at the moment. "Is she awake?" Kanan thought it a stupid question. He hadn’t tossed her off of his chest. "Yes. She is the one that sent me out here. She was worried you might be a bit upset, to say the least." 

********

It did make him feel better to see her awake and moving. She was smiling as Kanan sat back down beside her. Cham’s eyes wandered over her, looking for any sort of bump. If there was one, it was hidden from view by the strategically placed sheets and thin pillows around her. 

"It’s good to see you again, Father!" Hera held out her arms, multiple labelled bands sliding partially down them as she waited for him. He walked over and hugged her tightly, attempting not to cry. "I am okay. I am okay." She winced as he tightened the hug further, accidentally tugging on the lek. 

Kanan must have felt the pain as much as she did, or at least that is what his reaction seemed to portray. "Just... maybe don’t get the lek caught in the hug." He let go and let her check over the wrap. She looked up at him, his eyes still watering. ".... you’re remembering mom, aren’t you?" 

Hera tried to shove down the last image of her mother that was seared into her mind. Curiosity killed the tooka and she wasn’t quite sure it had been brought back by the so-called satisfaction. 

He didn’t answer. Hera looked over at Sabine and over at Kanan. Kanan stood up. "Sabine, help me grab some things from the ship." He held Hera’s shoulder for a moment before letting go, running his thumb over it. "Your comm is on the side table if you need me before I get back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Yes, I know it takes me forever to update._


	22. Worried

Sabine sat on the ramp, looking out into the stars. It had been both the longest and shortest- she flipped on the small holoprojector on her wrist- 35 standard days of her life. 

That night had made her feel more helpless than a newborn loth-kitten. Even worse, she still felt the helplessness and terror now. Not all the time, but enough to where it caused issues. 

It wasn’t as if she was prompting herself to think about that night on purpose. The silliest things seemed to bring it to the front of her mind. Today, it had been brought up by Cham’s Rylothian accent, the accent Sabine was positive Hera had at one point all the time. But now? Now she only had it seemingly against her will in times of extreme distress, rarely ever heard by Sabine’s ears. 

That accent brought back the smell of burning flesh and the slurred speech of someone she’d rarely ever seen not in control. Even though that night ended as well as it could have, she couldn’t help but imagine what would have happened had Ezra not been able to save Kanan. 

She now imagined what could happen if they didn’t save Ezra, and soon. It hadn’t been more than 9 days since he’d sacrificed himself and his disappearance was already having terrible consequences on all of them. It felt like a fog. Kanan and Hera cried often and seemingly randomly. Zeb wandered mostly aimlessly around the ship, occasionally attempting to convince Chopper to play dejarik with him. 

Chopper had been hiding in places Ezra liked to relax, warbling sadly when he thought he had no witnesses. "Are you okay, Sabine?" Kanan sat down beside her, putting a bag down on the ramp as he did. "I’m great." 

She hugged her knees to her chest and sighed, begging herself not to tear up. "Is it something you want to talk about?" She shook her head. 

"It’s stupid. Not even a real problem. The rest of you are physically hurt and I am out here throwing a kriffing pity party." Kanan raised an eyebrow. "It’s not stupid if it is upsetting you this much. If you ever feel like talking about it, just let me know." 

She faintly smiled, warmed by the gesture but feeling guilty for having come out here where she knew Kanan would have to walk by to go back to Hera. "Thank you, Kanan. Did you need any help with the bags?" He looked beside him. 

"It’s only one and its got a shoulder strap. I’ll be fine." He stayed seated, waiting for long minutes to see if Sabine would want to talk. She seemed to be regressing into her old habits. Old ways of keeping herself safe. 

********

Hera looked up at her father, who was holding back tears. "I promise I am okay." He shook his head gently. "Hera, what happened? You’ve gotten many new scars, that injury-" He pointed to her neck. She touched where the interrogation droid had haphazardly shoved the thick needle through her skin. "A typical Imperial entanglement." 

"I wouldn’t consider torture a typical entanglement, as you tend to escape before that." Cham responded, sitting on the bed by her feet. He seemed deep in thought. "Kanan. He’s got a lot of new scarring as well. Same entanglement?" She fidgeted with the thin sheet. "Same night. I suppose same entanglement." Her voice cracked. He’d touched on something sensitive. 

"What happened?" Hera was unable to stop tears from silently falling. "I would really rather not talk about that night. It wasn’t what landed me here today, so it seems irrelevant." She cleared her throat. "Exceptionally bad missions happen. No need to be embarrassed." 

She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. "Not embarrassed. I don’t want to remember that night." She was getting restless. She grabbed the comm off of the side table and held it tightly in her hand. Kanan was okay. She could hear his voice with one call. "That bad?" She didn’t respond. 

"You’re really close to him, aren’t you?" She wasn’t positive why, but the question pissed her off. Perhaps it was the tone. It sounded like he was talking to a child. It sounded like he was going to make this sadness into some sort of life lesson.

She already knew all of his little lessons. She assumed this one involved her father’s paranoia regarding someone snatching her up and selling her, or maybe his need to make sure she knew how badly attachments tended to end. 

"I’m not listening to you go on about how stupid I am for trusting a human male, so if that’s what this is about, you can leave." She hadn’t meant for it to sound that hostile and he looked genuinely hurt. 

"Sorry. I didn’t mean- just. That was stupid of me. You came all the way here to see me and I am already being rude." He looked straight forward at the wall. "No, I get it. A lot of bad conversations have started like that. I only wanted-" He groaned a bit. "I only wanted to know if you two are married." 

She let out a small laugh and grinned. "I’m not married to anyone, as far as I know. I do feel like you would have remembered if I had gotten married." He nodded, accepting this. He felt a hundred times better knowing he hadn’t missed anything like that. 

He let out a content sigh. "Dating. Dating the Jedi." If she’d been less injured and less nauseous, she’d have dramatically tossed herself back into the thin pillow. He wasn’t letting the topic go. "What makes you assume that?" 

"I haven’t seen anyone kiss a friend quite like you two kiss. On the lips and with a bit of an ass grabbing thing." She smiled and kicked his leg. "When did you see that? I always made sure we had no witnesses." He laughed. "I didn’t." She kicked him harder and laughed herself. "Fine. Why does it matter if I am in a relationship with him?" 

"I suppose it doesn’t. I had a bigger question, and I thought an answer to the dating question would make me feel more at ease." Now she was curious. "Oh?" He nodded. "It’s actually more about your lekku." She glanced up like she could see them. "What do my lekku have to do with Kanan?" 

"Hormones can also cause the blush. Since you haven’t exactly done anything since I have gotten here, but they have been blushed this whole time, I may have assumed." She raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying I am so deeply in love with him that my lekku are telling you that? You’ve truly lost it." 

He looked at her. "No. I just... sorry for assuming. Silly of me. Do you need anything from the cafeteria before it closes?" An abrupt change in conversation. She’d already told him they were dating. Well, she’d essentially told him.

"Father, I do love Kanan. I just think the lekku thing is made up." He looked at her. "That wasn’t what I meant the blush was from." He stood up and stretched. "You weren’t talking about Kanan?" Now she was overly confused. "What were you talking about?" He shook his head. 

"Nothing. I am embarrassed the thought even crossed my mind." She raised an eyebrow and readjusted. "No. Go ahead. It will make me anxious if you don’t tell me." He cleared his throat and looked down at his shoes. "Your mother. Her lekku did that, of course, as everyone’s do. But the only time the blush remained for so long was with you and Dira." 

Hera heard his voice falter, but she remained in stunned silence. She could tell he was remembering all those years ago. How happy he’d been fighting beside her mother. How much he’d loved her. How awful it must be for his one remaining family member to look so much like she did. 

She thought this before it clicked that he was talking about pregnancy. Not simply the days her mother had run around playing with them. "See. I told you I didn’t want to say anything. Do you need anything, we’ve only got about half an hour before it closes." 

She willed herself to say something. "I had no idea hormones could cause prolonged blush. I don’t look in the mirror often." He nodded. "I only know they are blushed because I know your normal skin tone well. Stress also causes it, which makes more sense in this situation." 

A light knock on the door. She recognized it as Kanan’s knock and told him it was fine to come in. He looked between the two of them and looked into the bag. "Ah, I forgot- um. I forgot your... shampoo." Hera gave him a look, but before she could say anything, he excused himself and left. 

"That man is a bit... he seems a bit stressed. How long is he going to look for your shampoo before realizing you’ve got no hair?" Hera let out a short laugh. "He knows damn well I don’t use shampoo. He’s hiding." Cham looked at the closed door. "From me? What did I do? He was fine earlier." 

"He’s hiding because you’re right." He thought for a moment. "About what? The stress? It’s obvious. An odd reason to hide." She sighed and uncrossed her arms she’d crossed at some point upon Kanan’s little escape. "Father, I am pregnant. With his child. He knew I was having this conversation and he did not want to see your face." 

He stared at her and sat back down on the bed. A few stray tears ran down his cheeks. "I am sorry. All those times you warned me about humans. How they’d sell me. Use me." He wiped the tears. "I think I trust Kanan, Hera. Force." 

She watched his lekku twitch. "I know he loves you. You’ve picked a good one." He laughed despite the tears. "Are you sure you’re okay? I was a bit more blunt than I intended to be." He nodded, still wiping away tears as they appeared. "I miss your mother a lot more at times like these." 

"I can’t replace the role she would have had. Your help. Guidance." She smiled, forcing it over the painful memories. "I have all of you. It’s not the same, of course, but it’ll work." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I send much love and many thanks to the couple of people who always comment, it brings me great joy!_
> 
> I thank all of you for sticking around!


	23. Search

Hera sat on the edge of her medcenter bed, her legs touching the floor. "I promise I’ll be fine alone. It’s okay to go. Sabine wanting to check where that refinery was is a good plan. Maybe they stopped there and Ezra is just waiting." She seized up a bit as a twitch stopped at the injury line and directed itself back into her brain instead. 

Her lekku were more expressive than she had realized, and each subconscious reaction caused her to blank for a moment or two until the misplaced electrical current faded. She finished pulling on one of Kanan’s old sweaters.

"I should be okay to travel in hyperspace soon. Once the stitches are out and they show me how to properly care for it, I will be good to go." Kanan smiled as she looked around for the rest of her outfit. "I’m glad to see you feeling better. Here." Kanan tossed over a pair of new pants. 

"It’s not that I feel all that wonderful physically. I’m happy because I’m here with you. We’re both okay. We’re okay and Ezra will be, too." She looked at the black, thin pants. "What the kriff are these?" He rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the floor for a moment. "The new pants you wanted." She raised an eyebrow. 

It was incredibly sweet of him to buy her clothing, but he knew she didn’t wear things like this outside of sleepwear. He had bought her tons of outfits before. "Kanan, I appreciate you running out and getting me clothes, but I didn’t need pajamas. I needed normal work pants." He nodded. 

"I know." She waited to see if he had any further explanation. "These won’t exactly hold up to engine work, and a single spark would probably send this fabric up in flames." He shifted uncomfortably, trying to avoid direct eye contact. It wasn’t a big deal. Maybe she could loosen the belt on her normal outfit and wear it a bit longer. 

If the normal clothes no longer fit, she’d still be okay. It wasn’t like she’d start welding without protecting herself. She’d be able to get clothes on base. "Kanan." He looked up. "Come here, love." He sat beside her and she hugged him. "Thanks. These’ll work for now. It’s fine if you thought I meant pajamas. I should have been more specific." 

He laughed a bit and rubbed her arm as he squished her in the tight side-hug. "Sure. We’ll go with that explanation." She leaned slightly away and raised an eyebrow. "Hm? What’s that supposed to mean?" He hugged her tighter so she’d stop staring at him. 

"I knew you needed normal clothing. You’ve got plenty of old clothes you wear to bed, and they’re all oversized anyway." He sighed. "I was confused in that store. I know the owner thinks I am stupid." She hummed and snuggled her head in against his chest. "What makes you think that?" 

He fidgeted with the pants. "I couldn’t find anything made out of the same type material as your normal outfit, not even close. I asked the person running the place where they kept their mechanic’s suits." Hera waited. "That seems like a normal question, Kanan. Many people work on machines and ships." 

He shook his head. "Apparently they don’t carry mechanic’s suits at that shop. Ridiculous of them, really." Hera nodded in agreement. "That’s absurd. They’re missing out on a large demographic around here. Not any sort of suit for engine work?" 

"Not a single one." She thought about it for a minute. "Which shop did you go to?" He continued to fidget with the pants as he attempted to remember the name of the place. He spoke under his breath. "The what, Kanan?" She tried not to laugh. 

The thought of him in a shop like that made her want to jump into his lap and leave kisses all over his blushed face. It was sweet of him, so innocent. "The fancy maternity shop, Hera. Kriff." He sighed as he felt her shaking with the held back laughter. "I knew you’d laugh at me if I told you." 

"Not like that. It’s... sweet. Kinda hot of you, actually. You put a lot of thought into it." It was too late. He was already in his mind running through explanations. "I couldn’t find a maternity shop with clothes that looked like yours, and I couldn’t figure out what size you’d need now in typical clothing, and then I saw that all the maternity ones had stretchy waistbands, which makes sense, and-" 

She turned his face gently so he was looking right at her. "-and I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable if the stretchy band was a requirement during this time-" She leaned up and kissed him slowly, holding the sides of his face. He melted into it, calming a bit. 

She touched her forehead to his for a moment afterwards. He whispered. "Because who the fuck can’t even buy their partner the right pants and I didn’t want you to think that I thought you should dress like this but you needed pants and-"

"Kanan." He stopped and opened his eyes. "Thank you. You do know I am not actually upset over this, right? I’m playing around." A smile slowly formed. "I know. I will find you something thicker and more flame resistant before we get back to Yavin, though." 

She nodded. "I’ll be glad to be back to some sort of normal. Finally get a small bit of privacy." Hera ran a hand over one of his thighs. He leaned over and kissed her more strongly than before, earning a little squeak when he nearly pushed her over. 

She laughed against his lips and pushed back, stopping when another twitch through the injured lek backfired. Kanan backed off when she stopped reciprocating. She was completely frozen for a few moments. He rubbed her shoulder until she answered. 

"Sorry. I-" She groaned before letting out a long breath. "You’ve nothing to be sorry for. Are you okay, freykaa?" Honestly, she wanted to cry. She nodded. "I am going to put these pants on before my father returns." She flung them out and leaned over, carefully pulling them up her legs. 

Kanan stood and gave her some help in balancing to pull them the rest of the way up. "Do they fit okay?" She nodded. "Perfect. I love how soft they are, too." Instead of sitting down, she stayed standing and embraced him. She sighed and snuggled into his chest, taking comfort in the rise and fall of his breathing. 

"I hope these twitches get less severe soon. I have plans." He laughed and kissed the top of her head. "Yeah?" She hummed in response. "Yep. As soon as you return from that refinery I need to relearn some things." She turned her head slightly upon hearing a light knock on the partially open door. 

Kanan continued to smile as Cham walked in, holding something in his hands. "I’m glad you stopped by before heading home, sir." He looked the two of them over and smiled himself. "I have one more thing. I had forgotten it on the ship." Hera let go of Kanan, shaking slightly as she got her footing. 

Cham handed her a head covering. She looked it over, impressed with the stitching and fabric choices. "I figured if your lekku had been injured, your cap was likely beyond repair." Hera wasn’t actually sure what had become of her cap. She figured they’d likely cut it from her head.

"Father, it’s beautiful." She turned and hugged him before sitting back down on the bed. It was designed like her old one, but with different colors. It reminded her of Kanan. 

"It was going to be your Life Day gift, but you needed it now." He rubbed the back of his neck and took in a deep breath. "So, I guess you’re all good. Not in immediate danger. I’ll get out of your way." 

Hera smiled softly. "I’ll call you every so often, okay? Keep you updated on Ezra and the baby. Thank you for coming all the way here to see me." He relaxed. "You... you want me to be involved?" 

She raised an eyebrow. "Of course. You’re their grandfather." His heart skipped a beat. A foreign word, a word he never thought would refer to him. She held out her arms. "One more hug before you head out?" 

He stepped around Kanan and leaned down, hugging her tightly. "I’m proud of you, Hera. Stay safe." He squeezed tighter before letting go. Hera and Kanan both waved as he walked back out. 

"Huh. That’s... that was unexpected. After all he’s done?" She nodded, Kanan holding her back against his chest as she watched her father leave. "He’s trying. He’s trying and I’ll never forget what he’s done before, but I am willing to start anew." 

********

She stood outside the Phantom II she had parked on the ground by the _Ghost_. "Be careful, Kanan. I mean it." She looked past him and at Sabine packing the last of the supplies. She tugged him into the small ship and closed the hatch. 

"Well, hello, Hera." She pulled his head down and kissed him slowly before moving one of her hands down to his. She placed it over her abdomen. "I love you." His face warmed. "Bring him home." She felt him move his hand gently over the slight bump. 

He scooped her up suddenly, Hera screaming a bit before laughing. He kissed her again as she laid in his arms. "I love you, too, Hera. I will be okay." Her smile faded slightly. "I promise." 


	24. First Attempt

"Chop." The droid had to be on the _Ghost_ somewhere. "Sabine, how good are we fuel-wise?" Something Hera would have checked before leaving. "A fourth a tank left. Stop at a nearby planet before making the jump, assuming we are not followed." 

"We’re not being followed." Sabine turned back to the controls and quickly took over. "Kanan!" She dodged a large piece of a Star Destroyer. He hadn’t expected the space directly above Lothal to be so littered with debris. "You know she’ll kill you if her ship comes back damaged." 

He wanted to laugh, but Sabine was probably right. For someone who would, rather frequently, ram her ship into things on purpose, she sure was protective of it when it came to letting others pilot and she would never let them take the same liberties she did. 

_It’s an extension of myself, Kanan._

It seemed silly. Sure, the ship was amazing, but it wasn’t alive. It spoke in a special binary, but it wasn’t like a droid that’d developed some sort of sentience. At least, Kanan didn’t think so. "I’m being careful." 

_**Mom would disagree. So fix yourself or I’ll comm her and update her on the situation. 'Mom, your stupid Jedi kriffed up the ship. Would you like me to drop him off on the next available planet?' And then I will take you there and give you a few credits and leave you to think about what you’ve done.** _

Kanan rolled his eyes. "Oh, no. I am terrified. Hera would have to pick me up, all alone. I just don’t know what we would do, just the two of us in the cold of space, waiting for the Phantom to return to Lothal." Sabine looked at Kanan as he continued. "Go check the hyperdrive." Chopper angrily chittered and poked him in the thigh before speeding off into the hallway. 

"You know he really loves you, because he said he would give you credits when dropping you off." He massaged his thigh. "I feel very loved."

********

It hadn’t been more than a day and a half before Hera officially decided she hadn’t properly thought out the logistics of living out of her auxiliary ship, not in her current condition. The lack of a refresher was making her the most uncomfortable. 

She’d had to get sick outside frequently, halfway strip in the cold to use the bathroom, and she had nowhere to clean her one set of clothes. All she’d wanted after the first bathroom mishap was a nice shower and some pajamas. 

But now? At the front of her mind? Food. She knew running to the capitol without her long beloved now gone blaster just to get food was a bad idea. Honestly, though, the rations kept in the ship were meant just for survival. 

They were not exactly made for people who really needed proper nutrition and they were not filling in the least. It was making the grasslands outside look appetizing. Really. Appetizing. She heard the growl again. 

She sighed and started up the ship, despite it already being dusk. "Ai’jou, narsu." She set course for the capitol, hoping to find somewhere quiet to hide the ship while she got food. "I’m trying my best. Twi’leks aren’t supposed to be this picky about food." 

This, of course, did nothing to stop the growling. She faintly smiled. "Human. Tiny, picky human. Your father will be back soon. I know you prefer his meals over my ration bars. But for now? I will see what I can do." 

********

She scanned the landscape in front of her, not overly shocked at the fact the city was partially burning. Upon closer inspection, it was only Imperial structures that were covered in flames. Citizen’s housing complexes had been halfway put back together after the dome chaos with makeshift bits of the salvageable Imperial items. 

Still, she would feel better with a weapon. Imperial holdouts were likely and her face was known by many. Her capture would be downright personal to some of them at this point. 

She landed the ship in a mostly secluded alleyway and scanned the area over to make sure there were no monitoring devices before hopping out and locking it up. 

********

Sabine relaxed back down into the copilot’s seat, wiping off a bit of spilt fuel onto her pants. "Did you have to anger them that much?" He motioned towards the mess as he narrowly avoided the bolts from modified TIEs. "What? They knew it was us." She began typing in the coordinates for the asteroid. 

"No, they didn’t!" Sabine rolled her eyes. "Break out of the atmosphere. Go to this heading." He looked over and read the screen, following the directions without further conversation. It wasn’t until the blue of hyperspace wrapped around them that either one spoke again. 

"What’s got you so worked up? We got the fuel." He let out a long sigh and leaned back in the seat. "We don’t need a single person more after us. That big of a scene was unnecessary." Sabine tried to read further into his frustration. "Those were just more Mining Guild TIEs. Not Imperial." He shook his head. 

"We don’t need a _single person more_ after us right now. Not even the Mining Guild." Frustrated, yes. But there was a lot more under the surface. "Kanan." She waited for his full attention. "Sorry." He tugged on his sleeves to adjust them. "Let’s really, really try not to put any of us in harm’s way." 

_I can’t take any more right now._

********

Food. Weapon. Simple objectives. Food first, because she couldn’t focus on anything but the pain of hunger. She could get healthier foods to help her heal later, but for now? Anything the cantina had would work fine. 

The cantina was packed, not that Hera should have been surprised by that. It was one of the few places still open after the attack. People needed their alcohol. She made her way up to the bar and sat on one of the stools. Not a single patron paid her attention, nor did they seem to recognize her. 

_Good._

It wasn’t until she was nearly done eating that the bartender spoke directly to her without being asked a question. "Ma’am." She looked up and he slid over a dark drink. "Oh, I just have water. I didn’t order another drink." She slid it back carefully, smiling politely. 

"It was ordered for you." He pointed to a man on the other end of the bar. Wonderful. "Tell him thank you but alcohol makes me sick. I would rather him pay for me some fruit or something." The bartender laughed. "Nobody slipped anything into it." 

"I don’t care if it isn’t drugged. Thanks but no thanks." She took a few more bites of her dinner. "And hurt his feelings like that?" She stood up and placed some credits on the bar. "I’m saving him time and money by telling you right now I am not interested. Thank you. The food was great." 

She did her best not to look back into the bar as she left. She knew what the man looked like should he give her trouble later. Despite her lack of weaponry, she was positive she could outmaneuver him. No hand-to-hand. One well placed kick or one tug of the lek could have terrible consequences. 

She made the short trip back to her ship without issue and locked herself inside, turning on the heat to what she wished it always was set on. 

********

The asteroid wasn’t all that stable, not compared to what it had been years before. The refinery had been completely destroyed. It was likely someone had ignited the gas, on accident or otherwise. 

Kanan was oddly silent. "Did... you need me to scan for a place to land?" He sighed. "He’s not here." He looked ready to cry. "Are you sure? We’ve not checked on the surface." Kanan shook his head. "He’s not here." Sabine looked down onto the surface. The place was abandoned. No wreckage from ships, no escape pods, nothing. 

He was right. "Do you have any other leads?" She didn’t want to admit to not. Her pause told him enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m using the informal meaning of “ai’jou”, referring to a young Twi’lek. Did I do this despite her calling the baby a human in the sentences after? Yes. I am having a great time with the dictionary. There’s a link in my bio for Project Twilex, it is the one I use!


	25. Initial Disappointment

New Message from: AFewAttachments   
05:28   
\- Hera, are you awake?

New Message from: GeneralKickass   
05:29   
\- I’m awake. 

GeneralKickass•05:31   
\- Are you okay?   
\- Do you need me to call? 

AFewAttachments•05:31  
\- I feel really stupid for waking you, I know you need the rest. But I would love to hear your voice. 

********

Hera sat up and cleared her throat before calling. She wished she was there in person to comfort him. The times he messaged like this he’d almost always had a nightmare, or worse. He picked up. "Hera?" She hummed. "Good morning, love. What’s on your mind?" 

She heard him instantly burst into tears. The sound twisted her insides. "Give me one moment, okay?" Hera switched the way she was transmitting. "Love, can you see me?" He looked up at the blue holo of the woman, sitting on a cot, wrapped in blankets. 

He nodded before realizing his side was voice only. "I can. Did you want my side on?" She shrugged. "Up to you. I didn’t want to intrude. But I do want you to talk to me." He sniffled, only to start to cry again. "Do you need me to just talk, Kanan?" 

Sometimes all he needed was a comforting distraction. A voice to drown out the memories. She twisted one of her hands in the blankets. "Hera." She perked up a bit. "Hera, Ezra wasn’t there. I failed. I fucked up." 

She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. "You haven’t failed." She was shocked to feel the pain in her chest, shocked her mind had hope for him being the first place they looked. Naïve. "I haven’t succeeded." He watched Hera wipe a few stray tears from her face. 

"Kanan, I promise this isn’t a failure. Sabine will find more places to look. We will find him." He let it soak in for a moment. "It’s my fault." She sighed, rubbing the side of her head. "It is not. Ezra is an adult. He made a hard decision in order to save the people he cares about." 

He felt like she was somehow giving him direct eye contact through the transmission. She didn’t elaborate, but Kanan knew what she was getting at. "Hera, you were dying. We could have figured out a different plan for what Ezra did, but you were going to die. I had to do what I did that night." 

She shook her head. "There’s always another way." What other way could there have been? He’d felt an absolutely terrifying amount of pain and anxiety through the Force. Hera continued to explain when he didn’t respond. "Kanan, I know it felt like I was dying. I wasn’t. Not exactly. I was mourning." 

"I was so sure with each zap or drugging that I was going to lose your child. I felt so stupid for doing what I did. I never imagined it going so poorly. I never imagined being in that situation in that condition." She wiped at her face as she began to fully cry. 

"I laid against that machine just waiting. I was waiting to bleed. I was waiting to hear Pryce giddy over realizing what she must have done." Hera rested a hand on the bump that had gotten slightly more noticeable. "Everything they did to me, that was all I could think about until the pain got so severe I just-" 

She laughed a bit and cleared her throat. "Kriff. Sorry, Kanan. I love you. I love you more than anything in the galaxy. Ezra doing what he did is not your fault. It is not your fault and he will be found. He will come home. Our family will be whole again."

********

She’d spent the day looking through salvaged weaponry from the past few weeks at the market. Everything was 'cosmetically' damaged to the point of Hera not trusting it to safely fire. She hadn’t found anything small enough for her holster, anyway. 

She had, at least, been able to collect parts she could use for repairs on both her ship and Chopper, which she found to be equally important. She moved to the last bin in the market. She ignored the many times people bumped into her and kept digging. 

The bottom of the bin had hope. She spotted a small weapon. She used another blaster to help pull it to where she could lean over and grab it. At last, she got a hold of it. It was a Blurrg-1120, just like her old one. 

This one had extensive burn damage and was coated in thick, black grit. She flipped it around in her hands. It fit perfectly. It felt familiar. Too familiar. She began to pick away at the grit on one of the sides, looking for something. 

She ran her thumb over the partially cleared section, not expecting to actually find what she was looking for. Her thumb hit a rough bit. Her initials, carved into the casing, barely able to be seen through the grime that covered the whole blaster.

_Holy shit-_

It was hers. She relaxed, trying to wipe away any sign of joy from her face. Taking it wouldn’t exactly be stealing, would it? No. But the person had dug through what must have been ridiculous amounts of debris to find the weapon. Something Hera hadn’t had the time or energy to do. 

She looked up at the vendor. "How much for this?" She held the weapon oddly, hoping to appear oblivious to any value it held. 

********

"General Syndulla! You’re alive! Gods, when news about your injuries got back to us, I feared the worst." She studied Mon’s face over the call. "I’ll heal. I am ready to work again. I cannot travel in hyperspace for another week or so, until I get the stitches removed, but I will be available over calls." 

"That would be wonderful. Can you train our new pilots?" Hera laughed as quietly as she could. "I can go over how to react in emergency situations from here, perhaps. To teach them proper combat flying skills, I would really need to be strapped into a training ship with them." 

Mon frowned. "I don’t know if they are of that skill level yet." Hera raised an eyebrow. "These are pilots, correct? How many pilots that cannot fly do you have?" Mon read off of her datapad. "There’s only three." Hera nodded for her to continue. "Out of?" 

"No. Sorry. I meant we have a total of three pilots. Two new pilots and Wedge." Hera waited. "Three? What happened? I don’t understand." Mon nodded. "Mart has decided to help on base." It made sense. "What about the others?" 

"General, you and Mart were it. You saved Mart. We couldn’t do anything. Your family is the reason you are alive and free. Everyone else is gone." Hera felt her stomach twist. "Gone? All of them?" She nodded. "I’m sorry." Gone. She’d led them to their deaths. 

She shoved down the emotions threatening to boil over. She cleared her throat. "You want me to train people to be combat pilots, but these people cannot even fly a ship normally?" Mon looked at a datapad. "They can start ships and make them move, but they keep crashing our A-Wings." 

Hera’s eyes widened. "Who sent them out in A-Wings without training!?" The woman was taken aback. "Well, I saw your young crew using them before, and they seemed quite alright in them. I assumed." 

Hera shook her head. "Mon, I spent hours upon hours teaching them hands-on how to properly fly them. Sabine and Ezra- they mean the galaxy to me. I would never have sent them out in something they were not properly trained to operate." She sighed, resting her hand over the small bump for a moment. 

Gone. Gone. Her adoptive son was gone just like her squadron, her cousins, her brother, and her mother. Gone like so many before her. Kanan was right. They had failed him. This baby needed their siblings. Their siblings were so eager to love and teach another Spectre. 

"General?" Hera opened her eyes and leaned forward again. "Are you okay?" She cleared her throat. "Yeah. Yes. Sorry. Can you send me the profiles so I can learn about the new pilots in the meantime?" Mon sent her the profiles of her new recruits. Two different species. 

She knew how to keep humans and Twi’leks safe. This wouldn’t be an issue. 

********

She ran up to her ship, Only Sabine walking down the ramp. Hera hugged her. "Where’s Kanan?" She sighed. "His cabin. He hasn’t let Chopper or I inside. I don’t even think he’s eaten since the refinery was a bust." Hera thanked her for her efforts thus far and climbed up the ladder. 

She went to the galley and grabbed a drink and her electrolyte powder along with some bread. She walked over to his cabin and knocked on the door. "Love, may I come in?" The door opened. He was curled up in bed, not even facing the door. It closed behind her as she walked in. "Will you eat and drink a bit for me?" 

She sat on the bed and put a hand on his side, watching as he tried to hold back tears. He sat up and faced her, pulling her into a hug as he rested his head on one of her shoulders. She held him tightly as he sobbed, kissing his head through his hair that was determined to tickle her. 

"I’m here, Kanan." 

She let him cry it out, soaking her sleeve slightly. Once he had calmed a bit, she asked him again to drink. "This has one of my electrolyte packets dissolved in it. I don’t want you dehydrated." He leaned away a bit and looked Hera over for the first time since he’d returned. 

He took the cup from her and drank slowly, still shaky. "I get the stitches removed next week. You should come with me." He nodded. "If you want me to, I will." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Sorry, I keep changing so many things I have to redo the chapters._
> 
> But I am still having a wonderful time and I love all your comments!


	26. Bonding

"Are we going to grab food after this?" Kanan asked, his hand wrapped around Hera’s. "I had planned on it. I’m kriffing hungry." They walked through the automatic doors and Hera walked towards a sign-in kiosk while Kanan found them some seats. There sure were a lot of pregnant people around them. 

Well over half of the sentients, Kanan counted. Surely not all of them had stitches to be removed, right? Hera sat down beside him. "Kanan, what’s wrong?" He looked bewildered. "Are all of them here for stitch removal and wound checks? I thought you were one of the few pregnant people to get this injured so frequently." 

Hera laughed and pointed to the sign on one of the windows. "Love, we’re in the prenatal care wing. They’re not all injured." He relaxed a bit before tensing back up. "Why?" She ruffled his hair. "Because after they remove my stitches, I have a check-up. They told me I could just get it all done in this wing. More efficient." 

"I wanted you here because we get to see the baby today. I haven’t gotten a proper look at them." His heart began to race. "We get to see the baby?!" She nodded. "We can take a copy of the scan home on my datapad to show Sabine and Chop." 

He’d never actually asked for the scans during her medcenter stay. He’d only made sure everything was okay. He’d wanted to wait for her. And she had waited for him! He was overwhelmed with excitement to the point where Hera thought he was going to cry. 

"I figured you had seen them. Apparently not." He shook his head. "I wanted to wait for you." She smiled and grabbed one of his hands, running her thumb over the scarred skin. 

********

The droid was removing the stitches far too slowly for Kanan. Why were each of them separate? Why did it have to be nearly completely around her lek? "Continue to use the medicated gel on the scar line. Are you able to move the lek at all?" 

The root twitched, sending a wave down the rest of it. "Not really, I have control only above the injury point." The droid took a dull-ended tool and poked in different spots. "Tell me at what point you can feel the instrument poking you, pressure or otherwise." Halfway up the lek. "Good! You are regaining some feeling!" 

The droid transferred over some therapy directions to help with both motor and sensory aspects. "Next. How are you feeling overall?" She smiled. "Nauseous, still. I think I have been dehydrating myself with the amount of times I am actually getting sick. Mild joint pains. Occasionally feeling lightheaded." 

The droid took notes. "If we find you to be currently dehydrated, we’ll give you fluids here. I want to give you some medications to help. You need proper nutrition." The droid was now preparing a different bit of simple machinery. 

"If these things do not help the lightheadedness, please return as soon as possible. As for your joints, that is common and okay." Hera didn’t agree with it being okay, but she wasn’t going to argue. "Lay back please, lift up the sweater to under your breasts." 

Kanan wandered over right next to Hera. He watched as the droid coated her abdomen in gel. "Holy- woah. Okay, that’s cold. Last medic had it warmed." The droid ignored the comment and placed a device on her abdomen, moving it around. 

It took the droid a minute, but they got it to show up. She looked up at Kanan, entranced by the monitor. He was tearing up. Hera followed after. "That’s our baby? They’re so small! Hera, look how small!" He held Hera’s hand as the droid continued to look over the slightly raised bump. 

He was right. Ridiculously small. So small but had survived terrible, terrible things already. How small the baby must have been during those first scans she never saw. She began to actually cry. Kanan wiped her tears away, letting go of her hand. "They’re okay, freykaa." The droid agreed. 

"All is perfect, ma’am. Do not worry. Progressing well. I expect things will pick up pace soon, depending." Kanan downloaded the scans to Hera’s datapad as the droid spoke. "Depending on what?" She refocused. 

The droid wiped the gel off, leaving a thin, sticky layer that felt odd as she pulled the sweater back down. "Blood tests show you have a high amount of human hormones. If it remains that way, I expect it to progress in a way closer to humans." 

"It’s the same, right? Why would that matter? Same amount of growing time?" The droid loaded more pages onto the screen. "If it were not a hybrid, yes. Hybrids can be iffy timeline wise, give or take a couple weeks." Hera looked at Kanan. He seemed equally confused. 

"How, if the timelines are the same separately?" 

********

Kanan sighed when he listened to the message left for the two of them in the galley. "Chop and I will be back in the next couple days. Sorry I took the Phantom. And Chopper. Although you might not miss him as much as the Phantom." Chopper warbled angrily in the background. 

"Put that away, it was a joke! Gods. Anyway, we’re meeting someone who claims to have intel on Ezra." Hera walked up behind him as he stared at the holotable, wrapping her arms around him and snuggling into his back. 

"They’ll be back and then you can show them the ultrasound." He turned around in the hug and wrapped his arms around her. "I know. I was just excited." So excited, in fact, they’d skipped picking up food. "I’ll make us some dinner. Want to join?" 

"I’ll eat, but first I have to get this leftover gel off. It feels weird. Are you good to cook alone?" She hadn’t meant it in a belittling way. He’d gotten used to her handing him the correct spices and setting the temperatures while he was without his eyesight and she’d still been doing so since. 

And while she would love to help again this time, she was getting antsy. Her body was warm and tingly. She wasn’t going to be able to focus on anything until she got this feeling out of her system. The mix of Kanan’s sweetness throughout the day, the feeling of the slick gel on her, and the hormones- it was a lot. 

It was a lot and she wasn’t going to wait until after dinner to calm herself. "Go ahead, wash up. I’ll start the food. You can join after." 

********

She stood in the warm stream of water, running one of her hands down to right where she’d been imagining Kanan’s earlier. She sighed, relaxing a bit. The end of the functioning lek curled and uncurled as she rested against the shower wall. 

She could still feel bubbles rolling down her skin. She was pulled out of her developing escape from reality by a knock on the door. "Hera. Are you okay? You’ve been in there the entire time I have been cooking. Food is almost done." She hummed before realizing she should probably actually respond. 

"I’m fine, love. I will be out in a bit. We can watch a holo and just eat in bed." Kanan smiled at the tone. "Oh, you’re taking a special shower. Now I _am_ kinda sad I was left to cook alone." He joked, turning to head back to finish cooking. 

She rolled her eyes and wiped some water from her forehead to keep it out of her face.

********

Hera was perched on her bunk when he returned with the food. "Impressive. That must have been a speed run." She had the holo projecting onto the wall at the foot of the bed. "I’m well practiced." 

He looked at the holofilm she’d started. It was as he assumed. The same musical all in Ryl she always put on. He acted like he was indifferent towards it, but he loved watching it alone with her. 

If absorbed into it enough, she’d sing. Her voice remained the most heavenly sound he’d ever heard. He climbed up and sat behind her, leaning against the wall and placing a leg on each side of her. She leaned back into his chest and pulled the blankets into their laps. Kanan wrapped his arms loosely around her. 

She talked for a long while over the holofilm, asking Kanan about how he was doing, bringing up random things. "How do you think different planets ended up with such different species? Like, why don’t you have lekku?" He ran a hand over the bump, resting it there. 

"Hmm... well, I assume the people on Ryloth evolved differently than the people on Naboo, and so on. Before we could travel like we can now. Why don’t you have hair?" She shook her head gently. "I _do_ have hair. I have eyelashes. Keeps the sand out of my eyes." 

"Is that a big issue?" Hera held up some torn off bread above her to feed to Kanan, the crumbs falling between them and onto her bare head. "I’m sure it was for someone. You also have eyelashes, dumbass." He brushed the crumbs off. "Yeah, well, at least I don’t purr." Hera laughed at his random remark. 

"Neither of us purr." She snuggled back into him further as she started to softly sing along with the film. "Sabine thinks you can purr." She stopped singing. "Why would she think that?" She closed her eyes, yawning. 

"Because she heard you purring in the medcenter." She shrugged. "Okay, but I don’t purr, so I wasn’t the one purring in the medcenter." Kanan scratched at the back of his neck. "No, see. I thought it would be funny, so uh..." 

"Kanan, what have you done?" She already sounded exasperated. "I made it seem like you were purring when super relaxed. It freaked her out. It was hilarious." Hera seemed to be thinking hard about her next words. "Are you telling me a grown woman thinks Twi’leks can purr just because you played one joke on her?" 

"No. I told her it wasn’t actually purring to further confuse her, but now since she heard it she is fully convinced you, specifically, have the ability to mimic a loth-cat’s purr when calm. Not Twi’leks. Just. You." 

"Even though she has only heard it once?" He shrugged. "Are you ever calm?" She shook her head. "No." She couldn’t believe him. "She would have only ever heard it once, then." 

"How in the galaxy would she not know the sound was coming from you and not me?" She waited. "Kanan. Kanan." He avoided her gaze as she turned around. "Kanan Jarrus, how in the hells did you make it seem like I was purring?!" He focused for a moment and she jumped a bit. 

Right behind her, she heard purring. "What the fuck?! What kind of an ability is that?" He relaxed. "Ezra spent a _lot_ of time convincing loth-cats to help us. I’m using whatever bit of fabric I can to give the sound a point to come from." 

He focused on her cap across the room, answering through it. "Like this." She shook her head. "So I used your shirt collar just a minute ago and I used the portion of the sheet under your head at the medcenter. I just watch or feel your respiration rate and make it fit." 

"What??? It would have been easier to manipulate me to make the noise because I am alive!" He froze up a bit. "Hera- why would I rip apart your mind for a joke? You don’t actually think I would do that, do you?" She hadn’t thought of it like that. 

"Even for a silly joke, that would be taking away your free will. I would never, ever do that to you." She turned back and mindlessly watched the still playing holofilm. "Do all mind tricks hurt like Maul’s did?" Kanan wasn’t sure, and he wasn’t going to test it needlessly and never on Hera. 

"I’m trained to resist and work to fight back against them, but I know even the attempts hurt." He hugged around her again, tugging her close before she attempted to turn around to look into his eyes again. "Without intent to harm, they still hurt?" 

"Hera, I am not going to test that. I’m not going to take anything and I am not going to twist your voice into saying anything. You’ll just have to be curious." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random chapter hours, a break from angst.


	27. Base

"Sienn, please tell me you know how to put fuel in a ship." She heard her ask someone. "Sienn. You. Can _you_ put fuel in a ship? I know Lona can properly put fuel in a ship but she is not always going to be on missions with you." 

The woman sighed. "What kind of ship?" Hera was glad these calls were voice only. She spent a great deal of time reacting in ways less than professional. Despite being ecstatic that she had people who so badly wanted to be in the Rebellion, she couldn’t help but wonder why they’d volunteered in this way.

The human, Lona, was actually a rather great pilot, but the Twi’lek... Why had this woman requested to be a combat pilot when she couldn’t troubleshoot her way out of the most basic of ship issues? "Any kind. I have been informed of a few accidents involving fuel." 

She heard Sienn swearing in her native language under her breath, frustrated with Hera and whoever had told Hera. It wasn’t her fault nobody had informed her of the amount of vapor around the area where she wanted to smoke. Wasn’t her fault she misaligned the hose and spilled some. 

It was not her fault she’d started a few fires. It wasn’t her fault nobody told her after she started them that they should never be put out by flinging water onto them. It worked on all fires she had previously extinguished and she was sick of being thought of as stupid. 

She’d not been around ships much. Why would she have needed to be? This was the first time she’d left her home planet, and when she travelled around Ryloth, what she needed was never too far. Hera interrupted her rant once it became clear it was not going to end naturally any time soon. 

"You know I speak Ryl, right?" Sienn stopped. Her voice got a bit softer. "Oh. Sorry for some of what I said, then. I didn’t know any humans spoke Ryl." Everything that was coming out of that woman’s mouth today was getting under her skin. 

"I know a few humans that are able to speak Ryl, minus the lekku signing. But, in this case, that is irrelevant. I’m not a human, Sienn. You know my name. I know you’ve met my father before. He tends to be the person connecting people to the Rebellion, assuming they won’t join his." 

This was an incredibly stupid distraction. Sure, she’d not done any calls where they could see one another, but the name and the fact mostly everyone on base knew that she was on leave for a severe lek injury should have given away the not-human thing. 

Sienn switched back over to Ryl so Lona wouldn’t be able to understand her. "You don’t have an accent. I have never met a Twi’lek without an accent." Why did that matter? This class wasn’t about her personal life. She’d just wanted her to stop complaining. She’d been hearing it far too often.

"And I have never met anyone who decided smoking near fuel pumps was a good idea. You’re lucky you got only minor injuries and that nobody was killed. Is this enough of an accent for you? Ask Lona to teach you how to properly fuel a ship." Hera responded in Ryl before speaking in basic again, a bit of her accent remaining. "I will be on base in the next couple days to start teaching in person. I expect you to know by then." 

She shut the comm off and groaned, upset she had let herself get sucked emotionally into that. "You do have an accent. Sometimes. Rough day?" She jumped a bit, relaxing when he began to massage her shoulders. "Not rough, really. I’m just a bit frustrated with one of them." He hummed. "You? A bit upset someone is messing with Rebellion’s fuel reserves?" 

It still twisted her insides to think about. "She’s going to kill someone acting like that. You know how dangerous that type of fuel is. The thought of seeing that happen to another person is too much." He massaged her a bit harder. "I am sure she’s not actually lighting up around the fuel. There are people watching the base." 

"You don’t know half the bantha fodder she said before you came in here. She’s a mess. Her parents must not have even let her outside at all as a kid." He sighed and moved to lean against her worktable. "Don’t look at me like that." 

"Freykaa. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe she just needs some guidance." She twisted her sweater around in one of her hands. Ryloth was dangerous for everyone, even more so for a young Twi’lek woman. She understood the compulsion to keep loved ones safe, even against their best interests. 

"You’re saying cut her some slack?" He nodded. "I’m saying we don’t know what kind of situation she’s just come from. Yes, she needs to be careful around the fuel. Yes, she seems to lack much of a filter. Regardless, I think you’ll be able to train her and get through to her." 

Hera sighed. "If you really think so. But if she keeps doing things that put others in danger, she will be kicked out of my squadron." The two of them heard Chopper angrily warbling through the door. "They’re back." 

********

His eyes twinkled as Hera landed the ship next to the temple. She smiled as she soaked in his amazement, letting it wrap around her like a blanket. "Different with your sight?" He nodded. "This place is beautiful, Hera. I couldn’t sense the beauty through the panic of myself and others." 

"I got only a glimpse of it one night, meditating." She stood up and put a hand on his shoulder as he continued to scan over the place. "I need to go check us all back in. Care to join? The inside of the temple is also amazing." He nodded. 

"I can probably see it better outside of the ship, anyway." 

********

Hera ran her thumb over his palm as they walked, pointing out all of the unique parts of the base. Her smile wavered on occasion, seeing empty cubbies or piles of things that no longer belonged to anyone. The pain cut deep enough Kanan could feel it radiating from her. 

She cleared her throat and decided to drag them towards Mon’s office, wiping a few stray tears away with the oversized sleeve of the sweater she had on. He squeezed her hand as she used her free one to knock on the office door. 

The door opened and Mon looked up. "General Syndulla!" She smiled and stood up, jogging over. Hera let go of Kanan’s hand and hugged the woman. "How are you feeling?" She stepped back and looked her over. "As good as one could expect." Barely any of the bandaging was visible due to the cap she had on. 

Sabine had lengthened the left sleeve to help protect it. "I trust you’ll tell me if you can’t do something. I am not familiar with lekku enough to know if an injury would cause other issues." She went to answer, but Mon held up a finger. She went behind her desk and opened a drawer. "This is yours." She tossed the new shirt over to her. 

"Rank has been updated. I assumed your old one damaged beyond repair due to the severity of your injuries, so I went ahead and just got one close to the old one. Colors are slightly different." She unfolded it and smiled. "General. I am actually a General." 

"It is well deserved. There are spare flight suits if your pants and vest were also damaged. They’re in the hangar, in a box on the shelf with the tools." 

Mon began to get multiple messages. "I really should get back to work, but thank you so much for everything you’ve done. I’m glad you’re okay." 

"Wait! I do have some restrictions." Mon put down her datapad for a moment. "Hm?" 

"Not from the lek. I am pregnant. Everyone else can find out on their own time, but I figured you would need to know because you are currently the one assigning missions. Aside from that, I want...." she sighed, "I need more flexibility. Ezra is still missing." 

Mon looked her over more closely. "Well, congratulations, you two! And I understand, just let me know when you are leaving so I don’t schedule you for things that day." Hera visibly relaxed. "Thank you." 

"You don’t have to do anything the rest of today. Just get settled back in. Visit. I’ll tell your new pilots that you’re on base now, and that they can meet you tomorrow." She focused back on her datapad. 

Hera grabbed Kanan’s hand and pulled him out of the office. They started the walk back to the ship. "She assumed it was yours." He nodded. "I have also been assuming that." She smiled. "You know what I meant."

"That you just didn’t call our relationship what it was for years so it wouldn’t interfere with work but literally everyone in the galaxy knew about it." She shrugged. "I guess that is what I meant. Sort of. Gods, I hope this openness doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass." 

"Whose ass is getting bitten?" 

"Kanan Jarrus, I am not talking about literal ass biting." He laughed. "Yeah, I know." 

"Do you always have to be like this?" She playfully shoved him with her body, not letting go of his hand. "No. Just when I think you need cheering up." 

********

Kanan picked Hera up and swung her around slowly to put her on the counter. "Feel okay?" She nodded. She was put right by the stove, the place she always sat when she helped him cook. It gave her easy access to the cabinet of seasonings and spices, as well as putting her face even with Kanan’s. He moved to the conservator and grabbed a bit of ronto meat. 

Hera had started heating the pan by the time he turned around. "Helpful." He cut off the parts of meat he wanted and placed them all in the pan with a bit of oil. Hera began to hand him seasoning. He gently shook his head, barely looking away from his cooking. "I am not putting that on ronto meat." 

She scrunched her face up and huffed. She grabbed a different one. "No." She rolled her eyes. "This was easier when you were blind." He raised an eyebrow and moved over to right in front of her, moving her legs to his sides and leaning into the counter. "Do you have a problem?" 

She smirked, taking her legs and wrapping them around his midsection. She began counting on her fingers. "Gods, where do I start. First off, I missed an important meeting already because I was throwing up my snack." He smiled. "She said you were going to start doing stuff tomorrow. If they had something important to say, they’d’ve waited for you." 

She held up a second finger. "Secondly, you aren’t accepting my help in cooking, which is rather rude." She looked into his eyes, twinkling in the light. He always had that goofy smile. When she smiled in return, he snuggled into her neck and kissed it. 

"Third. You make it very difficult to stay even mildly frustrated with you for more than a few minutes at a time." She held the back of his head as he continued to kiss her neck, slowly. He took his time with each spot, sucking hard enough he was sure to leave marks. 

The moment he leaned away, she pulled him back and kissed him. "I love you." Her toes curled behind his back as she whispered against his lips. "But give me a second." She leaned away and pulled off her sweater before pulling him close again. 

"Can’t have the sleeve getting caught in the open flame." He began kissing her again, moving his hands to her now mostly bare back. She gasped. "You okay?" 

"Yes. Your hands just feel like ice." She hugged him tight against her, laughing when he snuggled in between her breasts. "You know that tickles." She placed a kiss on the top of his head. 

"No food is worth this." The two of them froze, Kanan leaning out of where he’d been comfortably resting. "I could smell you cooking ronto meat." They watched as Sabine grabbed a bottle of juice from the counter nearby. She opened it and took a sip, pointing at the two of them, but averting her eyes as to give Hera some privacy.

"That is not ronto meat." She turned and headed towards the door, hitting the code to lock it behind her. "Call me when the counters are gonna be used for something other than _that_ and maybe consider getting a room." 

She yelled as she continued to leave. "Neither of you ever learn!" The two of them waited in silence until they were sure she was gone. "Well. Now she is going to think we fuck on the counters." She was becoming aware of the cool spots on her upper half where Kanan had left marks. 

"And she’d be right." She raised an eyebrow. "I was kissing you. That isn’t anywhere near fucking." He snuggled back between her breasts, his response muffled. "I meant we have before, so she would not be completely wrong." 

She rested her head on top of his, one of her lekku running over one of his ears. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have returned after two weeks!


End file.
